For Comment #3

[David]

Originally Posted by kai

Just a minor quibble: I believe we should drop usage of this name since it is based on only a single source which (most likely) got misinterpreted in the West:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...&postcount=177
(the whole discussion is certainly worth a look and starts around post #130).

It's certainly unfortunate that we don't have any "genuine" name for these "naturally formed" hilts. However, continued use of an at best ambiguous name does not really help IMVHO.

Thanks for the link Kai. I don't really need to go back an look at the whole thread at this point because, as i am sure you noticed, i was involved in that discussion and in fact completely agreed both then and now that we are indeed probably using this word in error. Here is that last statement that i made on that thread when examining the text found in Groneman.
Actually Alan, from the translations i am reading here i would say that there a are three distinct groups being discussed. There is a comma to seperate each group, at least in everyones translations. First after the human/animal hits, then the corn or flower hilts also called gana, as well as some tree-roots resembling the human figure.
That seems like three groups to me and the natural root hilts seem to have been mistakenly lumped in with the corn/flower hilts known as gana.
However, it is currently the only word we have. Regardless of Groneman's original intentions or if he simply made a mistake or if we simply have misinterpreted him over the years, members of keris collecting communities around the world all recognize the name "gana" and relate it to these natural root formed hilts. The purpose of language is to communicate ideas. Many of the words we use today once had different meanings. But when i say "gana hilt" to a keris collect, odds are that they will know what i mean. This does not mean that we should not keep searching, hopefully to find a more correct word to use, but the sad fact remains that we may never find a better term. What should we do until then when we want to communicate in words that we are talking about such hilts? How should we go about searching this site or the internet when we want to find examples of these hilts. I would recommend that you come up with a better name yourself and we simply just start using it, but that could take many years to catch hold, if at all, and until then we still have the problem of how to communicate what we mean and how to search for examples. This language is certainly not perfect, but it is all we have at the moment.

[kai]

Hello David,

However, it is currently the only word we have. Regardless of Groneman's original intentions or if he simply made a mistake or if we simply have misinterpreted him over the years, members of keris collecting communities around the world all recognize the name "gana" and relate it to these natural root formed hilts. The purpose of language is to communicate ideas. Many of the words we use today once had different meanings. But when i say "gana hilt" to a keris collect, odds are that they will know what i mean. This does not mean that we should not keep searching, hopefully to find a more correct word to use, but the sad fact remains that we may never find a better term.

Quite likely, indeed. Just with a plethora of traditional technical jargon which got lost in many languages.

What should we do until then when we want to communicate in words that we are talking about such hilts? How should we go about searching this site or the internet when we want to find examples of these hilts. I would recommend that you come up with a better name yourself and we simply just start using it, but that could take many years to catch hold, if at all, and until then we still have the problem of how to communicate what we mean and how to search for examples. This language is certainly not perfect, but it is all we have at the moment.

If there is no established and suitable name, I prefer to use descriptions rather than unsuitable names. This does not exclude the possibility to mention any unsuitable name as a key word for search purposes; in a quality site like our keris warung kopi, such a situation should be clearly indicated/referenced though.

Regards,
Kai