There have been a lot of discussions in this forum, and some controversy, about when an ukulele stops being an ukulele and starts being another instrument. I suppose that under an "ukuleles ARE sopranos" philosophy, any non-soprano would be a guitar, just with different tuning, or would a tenor have to be tuned DGBE instead of CGEA to become a guitar? What characteristics are essential to an ukulele being an ukulele - size, body shape, tuning, what the strings are made of?
I have two Compass Rose jumbo baritones, one of which has steel strings, and when I picked them up from Rick Turner, he even said that he thought the steel string jumbo baritone was pretty much a steel string tenor guitar. Is one of my jumbo baritones an ukulele because it's tuned GCEA and the other one a guitar because it's tuned DGBE, which is the tuning of the top four strings of a guitar? Or is it the fact that one has steel strings that makes the steel string jumbo tenor not an ukulele? Or are they both not ukuleles because they both have jumbo shaped bodies and/or a baritone scale length? I have a steel string tenor ukulele that's tuned GCEA. Would it be a cavaquinho if it was tuned differently, it is it a cavaquinho because it has steel strings? I don't think it matters. My jumbo baritones are ukuleles because that's what the builder says they are. Personally, I think that ukuleles have a more percussive sound to them than guitars do, and my steel string baritone CR sounds more percussive to me than my Blueridge steel string tenor guitar does. (I assume that if I participate in The Seasons of the Ukulele, I'd be complying with the "ukulele must be front and center" rule if I used my steel string jumbo baritone ukulele because the guy who built it calls it an ukulele.)
This controversy is not limited to ukuleles. Is an alto clarinet not a clarinet because it's longer than a "normal" clarinet and has a deeper voice? What about alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones? It turns out that trumpets also come in different sizes, as do drums.
The point for me is that they all make slightly different sounds and they all serve some purpose in making music.