create implication zweihander -> sword
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create implication zweihander -> sword
Is there a significant difference between a zweihander and a two-handed sword?
Isn't the zweihander a two-handed sword?
I don't know if there is actually a difference or an easy way to tell different Two handed sword other than context.
I.E
Germans using Zweihanders and Scots using a Claymore.
tapnek said:
Isn't the zweihander a two-handed sword?
Well, that's what it literally means. I just want to know whether the zweihander is such a specific design that it deserves to be tagged separately from other large swords. Unless it's particularly distinctive, there's no good reason why we need more than one tag for what appears to be the same thing. We've also got tags for long sword, broadsword, greatsword, and claymore, which seems like a lot of meaningless tag proliferation to me.
tapnek said:
Isn't the zweihander a two-handed sword?
It's the german word for this one. Well, it's written Zweihänder but that doesn't do any difference.
To my knowledge, "Zweihander", while literally meaning "two-handed" in German, refers in the English language to a specific type of large two-handed swords used in the 16th Century, large enough that it could pretty much be a polearm rather than a sword, generally around 150cm long at least. They're longer than claymores, and pretty much stopped being used during the 16th Century.
In design though, I don't know if it has any particularly defining feature beyond being a very large (pretty much the largest) type of sword.
In fantasy settings, the term is often used to refer to massive swords (like Nightmare/Siegfried in Soul Calibur for example)
Flandre5carlet said:
To my knowledge, "Zweihander", while literally meaning "two-handed" in German, refers in the English language to a specific type of large two-handed swords used in the 16th Century, large enough that it could pretty much be a polearm rather than a sword, generally around 150cm long at least. They're longer than claymores, and pretty much stopped being used during the 16th Century.
In design though, I don't know if it has any particularly defining feature beyond being a very large (pretty much the largest) type of sword.In fantasy settings, the term is often used to refer to massive swords (like Nightmare/Siegfried in Soul Calibur for example)
Absolutely right and it seems zweihänder or two-handed sword is a catchall term for all huge swords, even bastard swords are counted under this term so it's pretty wacky and not clear what is a two handed sword and what not^^. So yeah, I think an alias from two-handed sword to zweihander (or vice versa) would be adequate. I don't know what term is more often used in english and in german there only exist one catchall term (that includes bastard sword, claymores and so on.)
Well, I guess the traits which define a Landsknecht Zweihaender are the shape (looks like a lengthened longsword), with a straight double-edged blade and a cruciform hilt. It also has a distinctive pommel and a ricasso (unsharpened section of the blade right above the hilt that can be gripped). Zweihaenders are also exceptionally long for a sword and are sized more like polearms, with lengths ranging from 1.4 to 1.8 meters. Some Zweihaenders also have parrying hooks (Parierhaken) above the ricasso to help with parrying.
So shape of the blade and hilt, length, and the presence of a pommel and ricasso are the defining characteristics, I think.
Claymores are shorter and have distinctive forward pointing quillons, so the hilt looks more like a V instead of a cross.
The claymore tag belongs here because we have a lot of images where the sword can be distinctively-identified as a claymore thanks to the Claymore manga series.
Zweihaenders... I dunno, do we have enough examples to justify a separate tag? Plus they look like lengthened longswords from a distance anyway. A lot of Japanese authors also seem to use Zweihander to refer to a gigantic sword with a triangular/delta-shaped blade (including the Soul Calibur example), which isn't like the original Zweihaender at all.
Provence said:
Absolutely right and it seems zweihänder or two-handed sword is a catchall term for all huge swords, even bastard swords are counted under this term so it's pretty wacky and not clear what is a two handed sword and what not^^. So yeah, I think an alias from two-handed sword to zweihander (or vice versa) would be adequate. I don't know what term is more often used in english and in german there only exist one catchall term (that includes bastard sword, claymores and so on.)
An alias might be confusing for people who are trying to find swords resembling the historical Landsknecht Zweihaender, or the triangular blade thingy the Japanese also call Zweihander. Yes, Zweihaender can also refer to any two-hander in German, but sake can also refer to any type of alcohol in Japanese. A non-German searching for Zweihaenders generally hs a specific type of sword in mind, in the same sense that a non-Japanese searching for sake has a specific type of alcohol in mind, instead of the general term used by the respective native speakers.
If people use the zweihander tag to search for a particular historical sword, then I'm guessing they won't be satisfied with finding post #274913, post #1262291, post #1413350, post #2253839, and so on.
If someone with a keen interest in historical weapons is willing to keep this tag cleaned up, then it might be worth keeping as a tag exclusively for swords that look like "the" zweihander. It's likely to be an ongoing effort though, as there will always be people who use tags without consulting their definitions first (the straw tag has long been a wonderful example of this).
Otherwise, it could just be merged with two-handed sword and greatsword, since it appears that these tags are all being used in essentially the same way.
The tag implication zweihander -> sword has been approved.