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 Post subject: Swords: somebody want to help the wiki?
PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:39 am 
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We interrupt your regular thread for this message.

I have started to rework the wiki's articles on swords, etc., but frankly, I'm not as expert on edged weapons as some of you folks are. (To put it baldly, when you've worked with nukes, weapons that can't devastate an entire city with one use get a little boring. :-o Meji and Ian, however, I can relate to; maybe even Toren.) I could therefore use a little help.

A couple of questions for starters.
* Is it "Hape" or "Harpe"? Forum threads all seem to use Hape, but in the Poe notes, Harpe is used at least once. However, Poe can't spell any better than I can swing a sword.
* Have we actually seen anyone use a Spatha? References would help the soon-to-be-written Spatha article.
* I found a reference or two to the real-world Dolon (which btw raised my opinion of Poe's research a notch higher than it had already been), but don't know whether Hape/Harpe, Spatha and Lancea describe real-world weapons, or are terms pulled from Poe's imagination. Could an edged-weapon expert provide some background here?

Any help appreciated; now back over to the POW! thread.

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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:57 am 
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Spatha: Chris and Sarines housband in his death scene.
http://www.errantstory.com/archive.php?date=2003-06-27
http://www.errantstory.com/archive.php?date=2004-12-13

Hape: The sketch in wiki 'durus flamma' article says Hape, so I'm going with that, because it's an old drawing. (Seniority principle)

BTW: nukes? Are you USAF, NAVY, research?

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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2007 9:32 am 
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pillaroforder wrote:
Spatha: Chris and Sarines housband in his death scene.
http://www.errantstory.com/archive.php?date=2003-06-27
http://www.errantstory.com/archive.php?date=2004-12-13

Hape: The sketch in wiki 'durus flamma' article says Hape, so I'm going with that, because it's an old drawing. (Seniority principle)

BTW: nukes? Are you USAF, NAVY, research?


Those are not sparta.
Chris have a trainning sword, and for Sarines husband it's open to debate, but the timeline would make it wrong ( http://forums.kyhm.com/viewtopic.php?t=10269&start=88 )


Graybeard: sorry cannot realy help you. If nothing Lancea song a lot like Lance, Lance meanning Spear in french

(Spear
A spear is a deadly range weapon, used for close melee or throwing weapon.It must be used with both hands.
Length: 7-8 Feet
Description: The Spear is a long wooden pole with a sharpened point on the highest end.)

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PostPosted: Fri May 04, 2007 11:43 am 
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Chris has a training sword shaped like a Spatha, so once (if) he earns the right to wear the real deal, he's gonna be Spatha wielder.

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PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2007 12:08 pm 
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I was going to do some wrk on it but I am running pressed for time.

Spatha is actually Roman for "sword" and a semi-spatha is a short sword. Also, Lancea is Roman for lance. We need to ask Poe if it's related or we can get into trouble here.

I'm also considering whether a new template is justified.

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PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2007 5:22 pm 
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Slamlander wrote:
I was going to do some wrk on it but I am running pressed for time.

Spatha is actually Roman for "sword" and a semi-spatha is a short sword. Also, Lancea is Roman for lance. We need to ask Poe if it's related or we can get into trouble here.


According to Wikipedia, the story is a bit more complex than that: the Roman Spatha was not just any old sword, but something specific that developed after the gladius and other swords had been around for a while. This parallels the story line, as is reasonable -- sometimes life imitates art.

My real question is whether the Wikipedia info on this thing, the Hape/Harpe, etc., is reliable. Just because it's in a wiki doesn't make it so. If there is better information, please cite it. I don't see any Poe issues in connecting things to the real world -- no different that calling a Poe-verse "gadget using gunpowder that propels metal slugs at a lethal velocity" a "rifle."

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PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2007 10:28 pm 
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Graybeard wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
Spatha is actually Roman for "sword" and a semi-spatha is a short sword. Also, Lancea is Roman for lance. We need to ask Poe if it's related or we can get into trouble here.


According to Wikipedia, the story is a bit more complex than that: the Roman Spatha was not just any old sword, but something specific that developed after the gladius and other swords had been around for a while. This parallels the story line, as is reasonable -- sometimes life imitates art.


Actually, I have issues with the wikipedia article as well. Linguistically, I have non-internet references that trace the word spatha back to the Etruscan and translates it as sword, the generic term. This is why I specifically said Roman and not Latin. As you may know Estruscan is the root language of modern Latin. But I also am not quite sure of my sources either. I need to get back to the in-law's library. The father-in-law is a Linguistics PhD, from Cambridge, but he is far from current in his field.


Graybeard wrote:
My real question is whether the Wikipedia info on this thing, the Hape/Harpe, etc., is reliable. Just because it's in a wiki doesn't make it so. If there is better information, please cite it. I don't see any Poe issues in connecting things to the real world -- no different that calling a Poe-verse "gadget using gunpowder that propels metal slugs at a lethal velocity" a "rifle."


Okay, but I would be more comfortable if I knew Poe's source. It seems like a leap to me.

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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2007 10:03 am 
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Slamlander wrote:
Actually, I have issues with the wikipedia article as well. Linguistically, I have non-internet references that trace the word spatha back to the Etruscan and translates it as sword, the generic term. This is why I specifically said Roman and not Latin. As you may know Estruscan is the root language of modern Latin. But I also am not quite sure of my sources either. I need to get back to the in-law's library. The father-in-law is a Linguistics PhD, from Cambridge, but he is far from current in his field."

Not having a new strip until tomorrow, I nitpick here . . .

This Wik quote correspondes more to the conventional wisdom on the ancestry of Latin: "Latin was first brought to the Italian peninsula in the 9th or 8th century BC by [Indo-European] migrants from the north, who settled in the Latium region, around the River Tiber, where the Roman civilization first developed. Latin was influenced by the Celtic dialects and the non-Indo-European Etruscan language of northern Italy."

The ancestry of Etruscan is one of the classic conundrums of linguistics, but Indo-European it definitely ain't.

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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2007 2:32 pm 
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Boss Out of Town wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
Actually, I have issues with the wikipedia article as well. Linguistically, I have non-internet references that trace the word spatha back to the Etruscan and translates it as sword, the generic term. This is why I specifically said Roman and not Latin. As you may know Estruscan is the root language of modern Latin. But I also am not quite sure of my sources either. I need to get back to the in-law's library. The father-in-law is a Linguistics PhD, from Cambridge, but he is far from current in his field."

Not having a new strip until tomorrow, I nitpick here . . .

This Wik quote correspondes more to the conventional wisdom on the ancestry of Latin: "Latin was first brought to the Italian peninsula in the 9th or 8th century BC by [Indo-European] migrants from the north, who settled in the Latium region, around the River Tiber, where the Roman civilization first developed. Latin was influenced by the Celtic dialects and the non-Indo-European Etruscan language of northern Italy."

The ancestry of Etruscan is one of the classic conundrums of linguistics, but Indo-European it definitely ain't.


That fits what I know of the history of the Latin language. Plenty of Etruscan "loan-words", but not a direct descendant of Etruscan.

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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2007 11:08 pm 
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Too much correspondence with reality and history is a bad thing IMO. Ah-ah, an argument about Latin-roots already ... As long the kit looks right, and feels that's probably enough.

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PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2007 10:50 am 
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ri[[3r wrote:
Too much correspondence with reality and history is a bad thing IMO. Ah-ah, an argument about Latin-roots already ... As long the kit looks right, and feels that's probably enough.


Yup, save the catgirl

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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2007 3:20 pm 
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Here's a tip, ask the professionals.

www.swordforum.com

They're forums are down at the moment, but I'm a member there and I'm pretty sure that amongst the wide variety of master smiths and sword-wielders there's bound to be someone with the answers to your questions.

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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2007 5:29 pm 
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Neko7 wrote:
ri[[3r wrote:
Too much correspondence with reality and history is a bad thing IMO. Ah-ah, an argument about Latin-roots already ... As long the kit looks right, and feels that's probably enough.

Yup, save the catgirl

Hee, hee. Back when I was writing modules for the Middle-earth RP Game, the language guru's at Iron Crown and among the free-lance editors would ask me how I derived up with certain names of places and people that didn't obviously look Sindarin or Quenya. So I had my stock answers . . . .

a) "Uh . . . its Old Westron."
b) "Its a worn-down version of an old Elvish word."
c) "It's from the Haradrim."
d) "I made it up. It sounded good, felt right."

Two editors had an extended exchange of letters to find an Elvish word for "tundra," something Tolkien never covered in his linguistic notes. They came up with "barren grass" or "cold grass lawn" or something similar.

Except, as I pointed out, the Northern Wastes aren't grass or fields or anything similar: they're "tundra"!

I still like my word better.

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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 1:12 pm 
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Veritas wrote:
Here's a tip, ask the professionals.

www.swordforum.com

They're forums are down at the moment, but I'm a member there and I'm pretty sure that amongst the wide variety of master smiths and sword-wielders there's bound to be someone with the answers to your questions.


I wonder if any of those are into constructing fantasy weapons? That would be interesting.

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PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 2:01 pm 
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ri[[3r wrote:
Veritas wrote:
Here's a tip, ask the professionals.

www.swordforum.com

They're forums are down at the moment, but I'm a member there and I'm pretty sure that amongst the wide variety of master smiths and sword-wielders there's bound to be someone with the answers to your questions.


I wonder if any of those are into constructing fantasy weapons? That would be interesting.


Quite a few swordsmiths and knife makers are into Fantasy Weapons. Google for the "Blade Show" cutelry convention.

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