Now Ive often heard the Naginata refered to as a Japanese Halberd Now in my expereince a halberd is axe thingy with a spear thingy on the top and a naginata is a curved blade thingy. More like a glaive than a halberd. Thoughts on this are welcome.
Yes, a Naginata is basically a glaive. People use halberd because it's a more generally understood term. Maybe a WMA person can help with the finer points of polearm definitions?
ummm pole arm definiotons? ROTFLMAO Well umm I would but I dont have pics to go along with my explainaionts so some else will have to do it. BUt well I cant try I think well thers teh glaive which is just a large curved blade on the ends of stick he pollaxe whic could either be an axe head witha back spike spearpoint butt spike and rondels or the same but with a hammer face. often called a bec de corbin halbreds I think are jsut atype of pollaxe Bills and bill hooks are likea glaive I think but curving forwards usualy used for trimming trees BUt yeah there are multitude differnt types of polearms western adn eastern With varying names for teh same pole arm. just looking at the variations on Jappaneses pole arms makes my head hurt.
I was briefly speaking with some WMA and SCA guys the other day about this, and they told me that a naginata and glaive are pretty much the same thing, as K_Coffin said. I'll ask them for more info the next time I see them.