I forgot to mention knife is 18 inches long with a 11.5 inch blade.
That is not a knife, that is a short sword *S* .... the sword the Roman soldiers carried, called a gladius, was only about 25" (60 cm) .... and the short dagger sword (Katana) of a two bladed Samurai was about 24" ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katana
Good point, my Dear Wad-
not to
cut too too fine a point, but the more appropriate Japanese blade comparison would be to the wakizashi (between about 1 and 2 feet in length) , shōtō , or kodachi (also mentioned in the wiki article) . These are the blades considered "longer than a knife, but shorter than a sword".
The difficulty in distinction comes about through a combination of difficulty of interpreting the archaic Japanese phrases, and the specifications of the era. The most accurate things we have to use are the post Muromachi period edicts banning the carrying of blades longer than a specific length in the archaic traditional Japanese units of shaku, sun and bu.
The kodachi specifically is a shorter sword allowed to the merchant class, it;s length is between 1shakuー2sun and 2 shaku but limited to no more than 2 shaku in length. It has more curve and a longer handle than the wakazishi.
The wakizashi was made as a part of a matched pair: wakizashi & katana
And of course, the wakizashi, shoto, and katana, whilst conforming to general norms, were also made to the specifications or whim of both the maker and the buyer much as today :-)
The confusion is compounded by the fact that the Kanji these things are written in is often misread by us poor dumb gaijin.
for example:
kodachi, when written 小太刀 means little tachi
kodachi, when written 木太刀 means "wooden sword"
(the tachi is the archaic war sword, generally distinguished from the katana by a different curve and the fact that it is carrried edge down suspended by rings from a sword belt)
yhs
prof marv