[86335] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: News from Maltz
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Everson)
Tue Jul 28 11:10:16 2009
From: Michael Everson <everson@evertype.com>
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
In-Reply-To: <18BDD6F2-FD50-4640-8CA1-7167B19A42C1@alcaco.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:08:14 +0100
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
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/
