RE: VIRGIL: Virgil's mother tongue

[fabio paolo barbieri]

There have been attempts to track down Celticisms in Virgil's language, and 
even in his name (the first part suggest the Welsh name-part GWYR, Old 
Celtic VER-, as in the chief's name Vercassivellaunus), but the matter is 
not as easy as that.  Mantova actually had four or five different languages, 
as Virgil himself remarks, and he might just as easily have been a Roman 
settler or a Venetic from the east as a Celt or Etruscan.  There is no 
evidence that can settle the question, since we do not know whether even the 
lowest social classes in the area had maintained a native language.


From: "Patrick Roper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: VIRGIL: Virgil's mother tongue
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 13:55:16 +0100
Does anyone know if it is generally held that Virgil's mother tongue was
Latin, or if it could it have been the old Celtic language of Cisalpine 
Gaul
or, possibly, Etruscan?

If it was Latin is it likely that he knew these other languages as someone
brought up in rural North Wales (like an English friend of mine) might know
Welsh?
Patrick Roper
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