Guess this Indian sword

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

I dunno, maybe sailaba is a Turkish word, maybe the name for it in south India or maybe it has something to do with the T spine – I really don’t know. Sailaba was what they called it in the catalogue. Maybe Artzi knows, although he did not comment on the name. Someone wrote to me recently and said that he did not care much for all these fancy names, he would call it a sossun pata, then people knew what he was talking about – maybe we should too, but remembering that the different swords can have different names in the different parts of India.

Btw in Sind it means flooding the fields.


I see you have changed your hairstyle, your hair is longer.

Yes, Jens' guess is as good as ever.
Sailaba is not exactly a Turkish word, but a Turkic one. Turkic people ( Kazakh, South Siberian) had short swords called Selebe or Selava. Their migration to Afghanistan gave name of Selaavah to what we call Khyber Knife, and to Deccan,- sailaba.
Here is a schematic drawing of the Kazakh " selebe" by a brilliant Kazakh ethographer Jokan Valikhanov ( sp.) , 19th century

Russian army adopted this short sword ( saber) for unter-officers , called them Suleba.

[ariel]

And here is a real old Kazakh selebe.