Page "Paeligni" Paragraph 4

The name Paeligni may belong to the NO-class of ethnica ( see Marrucini ), but the difference that it has no vowel before the suffix suggests that it may rather be parallel with the suffix of Lat.

privignus.

If it has any connection with Lat.

paelex, " concubine ," it is conceivable that it meant “ halfbreeds ,” and was a name coined in contempt by the conquering Sabines, who turned the touta marouca into the community of the Marrucini.

But, when unsupported by direct evidence, even the most tempting etymology is an unsafe guide.

None of the Latin inscriptions of the district need be older than Sulla, but some of them both in language and script show the style of his period ( e. g. 3087, 3137 ); and, on the other hand, as several of the native inscriptions, which are all in the Latin alphabet, show the normal letters of the Ciceronian period, there is little doubt that, for religious and private purposes at least, the Paelignian dialect lasted down to the middle of the 1st century BC.