Ibrahiim is asking an interesting question. Indeed, neither the Mediterranean version, nor its Omani twin can be legitimately called " half sword", "little swords" or anything like that: they are full size sabers. And to the best of my knowledge both of them are locally called just Saif.
However, in both localities there existed short boarding weapons that could have legitimately been defined as such. Could it be that the Europeans mistakenly used the specific word Nimcha as a name for the vague and general "Saif" ?
|