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October 25, 2006
All Latin, All the Time
How could we not post this story?
Finland is one of the quieter members of the EU. But now its turn at the EU presidency has thrust it into the spotlight - and exposed an unusual passion.
Like the boy at the party with cheese straws stuck up his nose, it has been caught doing something vaguely disturbing - indulging a penchant for Latin.
It is the only country in the world which broadcasts the news in Latin.
On its EU presidency website one can find descriptions of meetings in Latin. But love of the language of Rome goes deep.
It's a kind of diffuse story. But here's the pertinent page.
From the latest newsletter:
Finnia hospita erit summo conventui Unionis Europaeae et Ucrainae, qui Helsinkii die Veneris 27 m. Octobris habebitur. Legatis UE praeerit primus minister Matti Vanhanen, legatis Ucrainae autem praesidens Victor Yushchenko. A parte Unionis Europaeae huic conventui intererunt etiam José Manuel Barroso, praeses Commissionis Europaeae, et Benita Ferrero-Waldner, membrum Commissionis Europaeae. Pro Finnis praesidentiam obtinentibus aderunt Erkki Tuomioja, minister a rebus exteris Finniae, et Paula Lehtomäki, ministra commercii et progressus.
There.
The Vatican's daily newspaper has called for Latin to be made the official working language of the European Union, after attempts by the new Finnish presidency to promote its use in EU departments.
"While Latin has been given up as a compulsory subject in schools over recent years, interest in the language is growing in Europe and other parts of the world," the semi-official L’Osservatore Romano said in a commentary.
"In these circumstances, it would constitute a suitable instrument for international communication."
The paper said a Latin-language news programme, Nuntii Latini, had been broadcast weekly for the past decade by YLE, Finland’s equivalent to the BBC, making the ancient Roman language "potentially contemporary."
One more Latin nugget: An explanation of "Lorem Ipsum" - the ubiquitous dummy text.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
More via The Way of the Fathers.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
I'd say let's work on getting it back into the Catholic liturgy first, and then work on making it the official language of the EU.
Posted by: Dan at Oct 25, 2006 5:17:23 PM
Radio Bremen in Germany provides a similar Latin broadcast.
http://www.radiobremen.de/online/latein/
Posted by: Marc at Oct 25, 2006 5:27:51 PM
I say send an FSSP mission to Helsinki post-haste!
Posted by: Gabriel at Oct 25, 2006 5:39:05 PM
Why are you doing an April Fools article on October 25? Did I miss something?
Posted by: Fr Martin Fox at Oct 25, 2006 5:51:40 PM
And of course, Nuntii Latini also has Latin podcasts. http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/audi/
Posted by: JaneD at Oct 25, 2006 6:14:27 PM
I suppose there isn't a good neo-Latin dictionary on line. The older dictionaries weren't written with modern politics in mind.
If any forgetful semi-fluent Latinists don't want to keep fumbling through their dictionary to read these things, this little dictionary lifehack should help speed things up.
Posted by: Kevin Jones at Oct 25, 2006 6:29:12 PM
I can see why the Finns are speaking Latin. It's a lot easier to speak and understand than Finnish!
Posted by: texanne at Oct 25, 2006 6:48:24 PM
For those who wish to conduct their daily life in Latin, I would recommend this book.
The reviews are interesting. Some people think that trying to use Latin to converse about "modern" subjects like real estate or technology is a sign of mental illness.
Posted by: Old Zhou at Oct 25, 2006 6:49:59 PM
Old Zhou:
One wonders what the folks mentioned in your final sentence would think when told that Newton wrote his great works in Latin. I also seem to recall a 19th-Century mathematician who wanted to make a simplified/regularized artificial variant of Latin the standard language for writing mathematical papers....
Posted by: Nicholas at Oct 25, 2006 7:14:06 PM
I'd donate to an FSSP mission. There are only 7 catholic parishes in the entire Diocese of Helsinki, which covers the entire country. There are probably more Catholic Finns in Michigan than Finland. If we can evangelize in Latin, I say go for it!
Posted by: ben at Oct 25, 2006 7:24:17 PM
Inscribed in stone over the cafeteria door of an institution of higher learning were the words of Cardinal Newman, "Fidem scit."
Posted by: Tom Kelty at Oct 25, 2006 7:43:53 PM
Oh Tom, ha ha.
You have no idea how many polyglot puns I have afflicted people with over the decades, mixing everything from Hebrew to Cantonese.
But I try to keep it clean.
Here's one for you: what do you call a collision between two Italian lawyers?
Guacamole.
Posted by: Old Zhou at Oct 25, 2006 7:50:47 PM
In high school latin, we thought this was very funny:
"Semper ubi sub ubi."
Posted by: Fr Martin Fox at Oct 25, 2006 8:36:43 PM
It's no surprise to me that Finland loves Latin.
After all, they love Conan O'Brien.
And the two just go together.
Posted by: Shaun G at Oct 25, 2006 8:51:13 PM
From the land of reindeer and Nokia cell phones...
I'll bet that's where Santa Claus lives. :-)
Posted by: tony c at Oct 25, 2006 9:33:51 PM
IIRC, the Lingua Latina series I was taught a generation ago hailed from Finland:
http://www.pullins.com/txt/LinguaLatina.htm#set_1
Posted by: Liam at Oct 26, 2006 9:04:17 AM
A: мир с вами.
B: I'm sorry, you were saying?
A: Frieden ist mit Ihnen.
B: Yes, I suppose we have all been freed. But is that...?
A: De vrede is met u!
B: I'm terribly sorry, I'm still not...
A: Pax tecum!!
Oh, of course, et cum spiritu tuo! Why didn't you say so in the first place?
(shakes hands)
Posted by: Pes at Oct 26, 2006 9:53:43 AM
A: мир с вами.
B: I'm sorry, I don't have any space stations.
Posted by: Old Zhou at Oct 26, 2006 12:33:14 PM
In 1981, I had dinner in the cafeteria of the (then) European Community with a number of friends, including, if I remember correctly, a few Americans, a few Belgians, a Swede, and an Irish lawyer who worked for the EC and was our host. We got into a discussion about the language problem of the EC, and the prospects for a common language. One of the Belgian women present was an Esperantisto, and passionately argued for her favorite language. The Irish lawyer (who is now a priest, as it happens) and I were the leading advocates for Latin. There were no other candidates. Our discussion, of course, was held in English.
Posted by: Henry Dieterich at Oct 26, 2006 12:50:03 PM
I'm sorry, I don't have any space stations.
Yes you do, admit it. If I remember correctly, you live in California. What else can you call Gavin Newsome? There are plenty...admit it, Zhou!
Posted by: Mark Windsor at Oct 26, 2006 1:04:00 PM
A: мир с вами.
B: My hovercraft is full of eels.
Posted by: Eric the Read at Oct 26, 2006 1:15:49 PM
Living in a rural area of the South, I had an immediate and unpleasant reaction to this bit of news. If this story hits the local paper, I'll never hear the end of it at work from well-meaning fundamentalists:
"Do you see now what your Roman church
is doing? They want to set up a one-
world language to serve the purposes
of their one-world religion. And their
next step is to combine the EU into the
UN for a one-world government, which
will bring about Armaggedon. See, looky
here in the Bookorevalation....."
Gee whiz, I can hardly wait.
Posted by: clay at Oct 26, 2006 1:18:33 PM
My late mother in law was a Finland Swede and claimed that until the 1940s Latin was the language in use in Lutheran services. Whether or not she is entirely accurate, Finnish took a while to cultivate a modern literary language. Latin was often used in universities in the early 20th Cent. there.
The Finns are an off-beat group...language aside, they are quite different from their run of the mill Scan. neighbors, as the films of Kaurisami indicate. There is a nice Orthodox presence there, native as well as Russian. In the 1970s there were still genuine Russian manor houses in the country, where one could buy fresh milk and good cheese
Posted by: Mark R at Oct 26, 2006 6:52:31 PM
As a teacher of Latin who must continually answer the incessant question "What good is studying Latin?", I must admit that Finland now holds a very special place in my heart! Vale, O patria cara!
Posted by: Michael at Oct 27, 2006 4:44:50 PM
