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Old 6th January 2014, 06:47 PM   #12
Ibrahiim al Balooshi
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE
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Default The "Whats in a Word Debate".

http://www.edenics.net/english-word-....aspx?word=CUT

Quote"Icelandic kuta (to cut with a knife) represents one of the oldest KT cut words. There's Latin caedere (to cut), but somehow there is no Indo-European alleged “root.”Unquote.


Salaams All. Trying to trace the word root and implications of influence of one system to another is probably impossible... see the reference above. The word cut appears in English to be derived out of cutten ...from The Scandanavian link. Kutti; knife / Kutte; cut. The mix ups occur due to similar sounding words that appear to be interesting, though, co-incidental. I would therefor rule out any direct linguistic link through to or from English. Accidental transmission, however, is always possible.

I would agree broadly with the above by Beoram and since it is probably from the ancient Sanscrit...it originated therein. What is interesting is whether Quaddara is associated since the link to Kattara seems evident. As Jim says Quote"I have always considered interesting that the Persian'quaddara' and the Omani 'kattara' seem to have thier terms so closely associated to the term for these daggers".Unquote. Personally I think it refers to the curved cutting blade in general terms thus it can be used for daggers or swords...(Then of course that has its problems since Katta have straight blades.) The problem is escaped since in Arabia we don't have that weapon...My final paragraph shows from where I think the quaddara/kattara appears on the screen. I think meaning "long curved cutter" in this sense.

What has to be remembered is that the transition would have been muddled, cloudy at best and unrelated technically and perhaps it is best to imagine the term in its red herring robes...An accident. The word thus becomes used in the Ethnographic sense. For example Omani people don't use the word Shamshir and often they mix up Kattara with Sayf. (but for good reasons..in the latter, Sayf, is the generic word for sword and anyway curved swords joined the debate quite late in the case of the big curved European blades around the early 18thC and a little earlier perhaps for curved Shamshir..Straight blades on the other hand had been around for 10 centuries before that (in Oman).

I refer finally to my opening cut (scuse pun) with another quote from the reference Quote"Arabic qadda is “he cut lengthwise.” Syriac has similar QD cutters. Arabic qasa (he cut, clipped) and Akkadian (ancient Mesopotamian) qasasu (to hew or cut off)."Unquote.

see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

Last edited by Ibrahiim al Balooshi; 7th January 2014 at 06:55 AM.
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