Excellent link Charles, and the topic was the s'boula dagger of Morocco which had a limited presence in Amharic context in Ethiopia as well as designated a 'Zanzibar' sword (Burton, 1885).
The 'nonsense' script described is actually a native effort at copying what appears to be the curious European inscriptions on many blades, particularly Spanish and Italian. These were often Roman letters confluenced with magical sigils or talismanic glyphs, and in sequenced linear repetition (Caino and Picinino in Italy). These were strangely sequenced, but rearranged in alternating groupings, so unlikely to be acrostics as many other blades.
The NONON and 'I's as well as other medieval groupings (many discussed in Oakeshott) are most typically invocations, and the magical sigils heightened the power imbued in them.
When these European blades entered the native contexts, they were intrigued by these markings which were of course focused on by traders extolling the virtues and power of them. Naturally native artisans would try to capture these qualities by imitating these inscriptions.
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