Finland’s longstanding contribution to the contemporary study and use of Latin

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village

“Nuntii Latini”, Finland’s weekly radio news bulletin in Latin, was, for 30 years, a familiar fixture in the country, with a regular audience of 50.000 (not insignificant in a country of 5.5 m), and keen listeners from all over the world. The three founding academics did not invent new words, but built new combinations from old, e.g. acta diurna (newspaper), interete (internet), and cursus electronicus (e-mail). The result, say the authors of a recent article for “The Guardian”, was “a Latin that was pure, but also fresh and modern, which won plaudits from aficionados around the world and made a major contribution to the contemporary study of the language”. One listener in Thailand said the bulleting “taught us the lesson of being a citizen of the world, of caring about our past, where we come from”.

Despite the Finnish bulletin’s recent closure, this particular “dead language” does not look in too bad shape, say the authors of the article. There is a Latin version of Wikipedia (Vicipaediam), over 40 active Latin Facebook groups, the monthly Latin Radio Bremen (DE) bulletin and the Vatican’s recently launched “Hebdomada Papae”. The news is also just out that DuoLingo has added Latin to its very popular language learning platform.

Source: “Finland’s news in Latin: For such a crazy idea we had a remarkable run” @ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/28/finland-latin-news-radio-bulletin-nuntii-latini-cancelled-30-years

Wikipedia Latin Version: https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicipaedia:Pagina_prima

Radio Bremen Latin monthly bulletin: https://www.radiobremen.de/bremenzwei/rubriken/latein/latein114.html

Vatican Latin news Hebdomada Papae: https://www.vaticannews.va/it/podcast/rvi-programmi/hebdomada-papae.html

Duolingo Latin course: https://www.duolingo.com/course/la/en/Learn-Latin