Saint Patrick & Names along the Antonine wall

[MonsGraupius]

Then NEMETON IS compared with the various names (Gaelic) NEMTHUR & Latin (NEMTURRI). The main difference is a single letter ... the last n ... which could easily be a copy mistake for r (n/r)

Where are you getting 'Nemturri' from now?

Grammar Of The Iberno-Celtic Or Irish Language

Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry

The life of Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland

All I see is a similarity in the first three letters, and a 'T'. As for 'copy mistakes' - this sounds like 'correcting names' to me.

The key letters are the consonants: NMTN comparedto NMTR

If you the compare the vowels as well you get: NEM-T-[n/r]

You can largely ignore the ending because that usually depends on the endings in use in the various languages so they don't reflect the original, but the languages through which it was translated.

We have three of the five lives saying Strathclyde and Dumbarton Rock.

All three based, I think, on the single note by the anonymous scholiast on Fiach - a medieval writer commenting on a earlier medieval semi-legendary saint's life.

Fiach's nemthur, as several writers suggest, is Gaelic for 'holy tower'. So not a place name, but a description. 'Nemeton' does not mean Holy Tower.

And how much of Roman history is based on a single source? Are you proposing that every thing that only has a single source is rejected as false? Come on, in the face of NO EVIDENCE for anywhere else, you know full well it's a ridiculous argument to say that it can't be Strathclyde because the early lives said it was in Strathclyde and YOU THINK it must have come from one source. And what is your evidence it came from one source? None at all! It's just pure speculation.

Patrick in his own words calls Latin a “foreign language”.

I still believe he does not - but the full text is available in both English and Latin, so let everyone decide for themselves.

I've shown two good sources that show he used "barbarous" Latin which shows he was not a native speaker.

If Patrick has been brought up within the Roman empire, by a Latin speaking Roman town councillor, not only would he have spoken Latin at home, but he would be expected to learn good Latin at School.

He did, it seems. He says that in his youth, before his captivity, "my sins... prevented me from really taking in what I read." What language do you suggest he was reading in?

I would guess that his cultural background was as much British as Roman/Latin - he apparently had an alternative British name - but by the 5th century, especially in the western districts of sub-Roman Britain, the standard of Latin was probably not very high anyway.

His father & grandfather had Latin names, but Patrick was not a native Latin speaker. It is therefore likely as an immigrant to Strathclyde, that he had access to Latin texts, but like all immigrants ... probably didn't see a lot of point in learning what was to him a "foreign language" (as he puts it).

In contrast, if he were born in Latin speaking Britain, then he would have learnt Latin at home and Latin would have been seen as an obvious advantage to an intelligent boy like Patrick.

Perhaps you are speaking from the viewpoint of the monolingual Brit for whom learning a foreign language is a chore. Let me put it in its proper context. A few years ago I went to Denmark camping. I had learnt Danish and was looking forward to trying it out. I tried a few Adults, but as soon as I spoke, they answered in English. So I tried some teenagers, they similarly just answered in English. Eventually I bumped into a 5year old excused myself in Danish and they answered in English. In all my time there, I only once managed to find anyone to speak Danish to ... and that was a drunk fisherman from a very rural area.