[guwaya]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Kai, I'm not prepared to discuss, nor to debate the professional skills of accredited or sworn translators.

This is not my area of expertise. My skills are concerned with identifying a deficiency and seeking the right advice from the right person to correct that deficiency. In this case there would appear to be a deficiency in the original text produced by Gronemann. This text was probably produced in the late 19th century, or early 20th century, so what we need is a translator, or perhaps as you suggest, a linguist who is skilled in understanding the idiosyncrasies of the German language during that period of time. We need a professional who can swear that his translation does reflect the intent of the writer.

Now, I have no idea at all how a translator is able to do this, but I have seen them get up in a court of law and so swear, and I have seen that sworn evidence accepted by all concerned.

In this matter there is only one thing to be clarified, I believe, and that is this:-

did Groneman intend the word "gana" to be applied to root-form hilts ?

Yes?

No?

or

Maybe?

That's all we need to know to put this matter to sleep.

I have already made enquiries that I hope will give us a definite result, but I am sure that we would welcome any contribution to the resolution of this question that you may be able to bring to the table.

I support A. G. Maisey's proposal to put the matter to sleep, otherwise this theme will be "discussed" in best German (and Dutch?) tradition for the next weeks without a result and with loosing the red wire. A "Maybe" should be enough for the moment and I like to stop here with a hint to my formerly made statement:

"It seems that the use of gana is only to read at Groneman (the others took it from Groneman) and" - independently from the exact translation of Gronemn's statement - the use of gana "is not confirmed by other researchers upon own researches. If this is the fact, the use of the term gana will always have to be used with a questionmark or with the hint to Groneman's reference."

Thanks