Parang, Java? Old blade?

[A. G. Maisey]

The difference in names comes from the difference in locations & consequently dress.

We're looking at Bugis terminology & Javanese terminology.

In Central Jawa this blade is going to be called a pedang, in any dress at all it can be called anything else at all in any other place at all.

Names vary from place to place, from time to time and from person to person. The same person can give a different name to the same object on a different day, and/or if it is being used in a different way, or worn in a different way.

In my experience it becomes a pretty pointless exercise to pin an unchanging, nailed down, cast iron name on something, and this does not only apply to weaponry, it is general across almost everything.

Kai has indicated that getting a "specific" name for something is difficult, well, the concept of something having a specific name is dependent upon time, location, place, circumstance, & person. In these societies "specific" means what the person you are speaking with, & what you, yourself, can agree is correct.

EDIT

Just a bit if clarification, in Javanese a pedang is a sword, a parang is a chopping tool, but today's pedang can well be tomorrow's parang:dad bought himself a pedang to wear when he does guard duty at the kraton, but then he died, junior got the pedang and he used it to clear some scrub so he could build a house, and that's when it became a parang.

In Balinese the word "parang" appears not to exist, but "peding" means "sword".

In Sundanese a "parang" is a farming tool for chopping light scrub,"pedang" is "sword".

In Malay a "parang" is a chopping tool, a "pedang" is a sword.

Both parang and pedang have classifiers, FX, a "pedang suduk" is a stabbing sword in Javanese, a "pedang sabet" is a slashing sword in Javanese, ie, a sabre, and there can be specific forms of each type, but opinions on what is what do vary, as previously noted.