What could DRK have learned from FFXI?

[TouchandFeel]

snip

Mahou (魔法) and madou (魔道) are basically the same word within the context of usage in Japanese, meaning magic in a Western sense, you just rarely if ever see madou (魔道) used by itself and you rarely if ever see mahoushi (魔法士) used for mage/magician/wizard and instead see madoushi (魔道士). It's just an example of the common quirk in Japanese where two or more words mean exactly the same thing even though they have different parts, and kanji, making them up and each is used instead of the others depending on context or situation.

So no, that fact that ma (魔) is in madoushi (魔道士) has as much connotative weight as it appearing in mahou (魔法), which is virtually none for the exact same reason of it expressing a very specific concept of the Western idea of magic.

If one wants to argue that the Makenshi (魔剣士) of FF3 should not be included in an argument of "what were Dark Knight classic abilities" because it was a proto-Dark Knight and therefore the truly formative elements hadn't been established yet, that is fine.
But, if we are talking about the Japanese names, the words that are used for them , the context within the kanji and how that then relates to the words/names and how best to try to capture that in an English translation, I stand by what I have said.

Also, the last time this exact topic came up I decided to sanity-check myself and ran it by an immediate family member that is a native Japanese speaker with multiple degrees in language and literature, years of working as a professional English/Japanese translator and having taught Japanese at a college level. They basically told me what I have said here in regards to the meaning of the words and how the context of the kanji does and doesn't carry over to the words in regards to the whole ma (魔) in makenshi ((魔 剣士) and mahou (魔法) topic. I think I'll take their word on it.