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Originally Posted by Galadriel55
But Aragorn, for instance, not being tied to any real-world dynasty, can be called tsar and korol interchangeably, and also knyaz (which is "prince" except that it's much more than "prince", it calls back to the time in history when Knyaz was the title of the biggest boss in your group of people).
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I subscribe to to the school of thought that says that translating knyaz as "prince" or "grand prince" is a piece of western snobbery which was intended to reduce the social and cultural standing of the Rus' and their medieval states. I believe the most appropriate translation of knyaz (especially in a medieval historical context) is, in fact, "king." Doubly so since the word ultimately derives from the same root as the word king. However, time and linguistic shifts solidified the translation as Grand Prince to the point that the Russian Tsars handed the title out with the explicit intention of it being understood as "Grand Prince", for example, the Grand Principality of Finland.
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But coming back to Farmer Giles
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Oh yes...sputter…*ahem*…
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Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
I think that if it was used in the Middle Ages, it could have been used as a "fancy extra title", using a "foreign word" in your list, perhaps in some "international" diplomatic meetings or somesuch.
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Which brings us around to an important, and ironic, point...which Gildor might have made. For all the seeming physical and cultural isolation and parochialism of the Middle and Little Kingdoms, they retained evidences of wider experiences of the world.
Of course, the Latin itself is evidence of that.