Jians of scholars

The idea of "scholar" jian and "military" jian is mostly a modern way of dividing up jian. It's really just a way of differentiating between quality of jian. The "military" or "militia" jian were the ones made by village blacksmiths, often heavier and plainer than their more expensive brethren. Since they were usually made for the militia or common soldiers, these jian were designed for a better cut rather than the thrust. After all, the wielder would not be as trained in martial arts.

The idea of the "scholar" jian comes from the later periods when the upper class were forced to take up weapons to defend themselves/property (Earlier Confucian scholars would certainly find owning a weapon of war detestable). Contrary to popular belief, they were neither more delicate than their cheaper brethren nor meant for just training tools or nonlethal damage. To put it simply, the idea of "scholar" jian is simply a more expensive jian commissioned from a good smith. Being custom, they'd have better quality overall, from handling to durability to looks.

To recap, the names are just easier ways to group general quality. Basically, just like today, you got what you paid for. Pick up a nice blade that is of good quality, learn a couple traditional techniques, and you'll be scholar enough

Well, I have a different opinion.
Wen jian and Wu jian have been mentioned a real long time in China. Poets like Li Bai were playing around with swords (sword dance), but never ever fought a single fight (danced the sword). Those weapons were not as sharp, had rounder tops, were much more lavishly decorated, with lots of preciuos stones, inlays etc.
All rather unpractical for real fights. Also the weight differed. But interestingly, there are also sources mentioning purely decorative sword with the military, especailly in later times.

Concerning Confucianism, I also like to differ. It was even in the man's curriculum himself, that he propagated hourse riding and bow shooting. After all, Confucianists knew exactly well that reigning a kingdom needed some weapons. Maybe they did not like to fight or just could not, but atleast archery was common among them.

I'm of the opinion that all Chinese Romanizations are terrible. Jian sounds like Jen or Jin, Wuxia sounds like Woosha, Tao sounds like Dao...ugh. Makes me sound plenty dumb when I try to pronounce anything I read

Still, thanks for the feed back. I'd like to add a jian to my collection eventually (by which I mean the architypical one with the wing style guard, not the apparently guard-less ones I see in certain drawings)

I may go with Garrett, though are those jians the wushu (woo shoo?) type or "weapon" jians?

M.

Agreed now, and most welcome, as I myself tend to do the same, when it get's a bit heated, lol.

Concerning the romanizations of Chinese, that is really an ever lasting problem.

First, I learned Wade Giles at university, so we wrote T'ai-chi ch'üan.
Then I learned Hanyu Pinyin, the official PRC transcription system, and we wrote Taijiquan.

Neither of both is usable without any intensive schooling.

Finally, I studied classical and long character Chinese here in Taiwan, where they use something called Bopomofo, a list of simple symbols connected to sounds (phonems). With that all kids learn Chinese here, it takes only about half a day to learn, and as it is not connected to any western alphabetical sounds, it let's you understand the different Chinese phonems best.

But, who the hack uses Bopomofo? Even the UN uses Pinyin, so we just don't have any real choise.

Confucianism is Ruxue in CHinese, the big master is Kongzi, the other one would be Mengzi, and the Latinisations of Confucius or Mencius are just plain western arrogance.

Oh, that song! All kids have to learn it, and some fo us foreign students, too.

And of course, I also key-in Chinese characters with Pinyin + tones, even got me a keyboard without all those colourful bopomofo symbols (I see atleast 4 different coulous on any pad of my wife's keyboard, her being Chinese, looks too confusing!)