I think I might've found the native Laz term for the Laz Bichaq!

[Ren Ren]

This is an excellent work and it certainly deserves attention and should be taken with all possible seriousness.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Ren Ren

This is an excellent work and it certainly deserves attention and should be taken with all possible seriousness.

No levity intended toward this work, which as I noted is in my opinion, brilliant, but more toward previous efforts at discussion on this topic.

[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

No levity intended toward this work, which as I noted is in my opinion, brilliant, but more toward previous efforts at discussion on this topic.

In no way do I consider your words to be frivolous. My phrase is addressed to those who will read Nihl's post.

[Ian]

Nihl:

Thank you for your careful work in defining what seems to be the local descriptor for the (so-called) laz bicaq.

As others have noted, your findings deserve careful consideration. The main discussants of this topic have taken a short holiday from the Forum, so it may be a while before they weigh back in. Please feel free to expand on your ideas in their absence.

Do we have any native-speakers of the Georgian/Laz language who might assist Nihl in his efforts?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Ren Ren

In no way do I consider your words to be frivolous. My phrase is addressed to those who will read Nihl's post.

Understood, and thank you for the note. My concerns were of course also toward the troublesome thread of several weeks ago.

[Nihl]

Thank you all for the positive responses!

In regards to Ian's comment: I suppose it is true that without our most vocal members here things will probably be relatively quiet. In hindsight, there really isn't that much to add on to this here other than to perhaps have a discussion about whether or not "the community" should adopt this term.
-My take, for the record, would be that the term should at least be recognized, given that the Laz are the most well known users of these swords. I also think "xami" is a cooler word for knife than "bichaq", but that's just personal preference

Other than that, I have to admit that these Didi Xami are rather out of my area of expertise. I quite like them as aesthetically beautiful - and theoretically quite deadly - swords (my first antique actually was a laz sword), however aside from that I know very little about the intricacies of Caucasian and Caucasia-adjacent cultures. As such, I don't mean to try and forfit my role in this discovery here, but merely to express that I don't have an entire thesis-worth of information to provide beyond what I initially posted.

Perhaps sometime in the future, when I next find myself haphazardly googling things about laz culture, I'll use my young person internet skills to try and find some laz forum or social media group that I can inquire further about these swords on. Or simply ask them what they would call a sword lol.

[Jim McDougall]

Nihl,
I truly applaud your research work and well presented aspects of the particulars of these terms as applied to these weapons. Also for sharing this here in what has been a rather formidable and often hostile theater on this topic.

In the many years I have studied arms and armor, especially in the ethnographic areas, the 'name game' , as we have come to call it, has often been one of the most confounding aspects of study. It becomes a problem of transliteration, semantics, dialects, vernacular and colloquial use etc. which presents issue when particular forms are being discussed out of context or in early accounts or narratives when researchers are relying on those resources.

For example, it is well known by historians that Magellan was killed by tribesmen in the Philippines in 1521, by many accounts with a 'kampilan'. We know what this sword type looks like now, and how they are believed to have looked over the past 150 or more years, but what exactly did a 'kampilan' look like in those times and in the Philippines rather than other regions of use?

I have been told in many cases, ethnic terms for the same weapon type can vary either subtly or sometimes dramatically, almost from one village to another in a sense, in tribal regions of Indonesia and SE Asia.

In the case of the transverse gripped daggers in India we know as the 'katar', these are termed locally jamadhar, but through an apparent oversight, Egerton (1885) transposed the term from the more conventional form dagger named katar. Subsequent writers followed suit and used the katar term without question, and as those references became venerable resources, the term for these changed to what we now term, a collectors term.

The collectors terms used for it seems, almost countless types of arms as described by writers since the 19th century, have been classified by names which are often incomprehensible to locals in the areas they originate.
Another example, in the Sudan and Ethiopia, the broadswords we know as 'kaskara' are simply deemed sa'if, nobody there has any idea what the term kaskara means! One tribesman I spoke with from Sudan, when shown a photo of a kaskara, said he called it a 'cross'.

So the point is, it is not a matter of 'right or wrong' as far as what term is used to describe a weapon, except for the sake of convenience semantically in discussion or published work. However, it is essential to note the varied cases of alternative terms in a cross reference sense, so that further researchers using these references can move accordingly forward.

Returning to my original comments Nihl, nicely researched, well presented and with staunch resolve. As someone always trying to learn on the history of these arms, I sincerely thank you, as do I am sure others reading here in the same manner.

[CharlesS]

Very interesting! Nice research!