tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 28 08:09:51 2009
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Re: News from Maltz
On 28 Jul 2009, at 03:40, ghunchu'wI' wrote:
> 1) The noun {vIlle'} means something close to "minion". [The word
> in English is often used to refer to a loyal or even fawning servant
> of someone who is typically considered powerful. Compare with
> "henchman", who has the same general job but is usually a mercenary.]
Ah. Compare feudal "villain". Wikipedia:
"Villain comes from the Anglo-French and Old French 'vilein', which
itself descends from the Late Latin word 'villanus' meaning
'farmhand.' Someone who is bound to the soil of a 'villa', which is to
say, worked on the equivalent of a plantation in Late Antiquity, in
Italy or Gaul. It referred to a person of less than knightly status
and so came to mean a person who was not chivalrous. As a result of
many unchivalrous acts, such as treachery or rape, being considered
villainous, in the modern sense the word, it became used as a term of
abuse and eventually took on its modern meaning."
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/