Sic transit gloria mundi
June 29, 2019 8:06 AM Subscribe
Nuntii Latini, the weekly news bulletin in Latin broadcasted by Finnish public radio (YLE), is cancelled – after 30 years.
You can still learn some of the vocabulary used in the program to describe the modern world, with English, German and Finnish translations.
You can still learn some of the vocabulary used in the program to describe the modern world, with English, German and Finnish translations.
On the other hand, Vatican radio now has a weekly newscast in Latin.
There's other stuff out there as well, so gaudeamus igitur
posted by BWA at 9:00 AM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
There's other stuff out there as well, so gaudeamus igitur
posted by BWA at 9:00 AM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]
Vatican City also has ATMs with Latin as a selectable language.
The Vatican has some official (observer?) status in the EU, which is sufficient to require that all official EU documents are translated into the Vatican's official language, which is Latin. The Vatican's status as a nation is controversial (it emerged from the 1926 Lateran Treaty with Mussolini's Italy, and the Vatican not having a native population arguably disqualifies it from the criteria for nationhood, though political realities make expelling it implausible), and while this is one one level an abuse of a mechanism designed to cater for native speakers of EU member languages, it also does mean that there is an excellent corpus of text pairs including Latin.
posted by acb at 9:56 AM on June 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
The Vatican has some official (observer?) status in the EU, which is sufficient to require that all official EU documents are translated into the Vatican's official language, which is Latin. The Vatican's status as a nation is controversial (it emerged from the 1926 Lateran Treaty with Mussolini's Italy, and the Vatican not having a native population arguably disqualifies it from the criteria for nationhood, though political realities make expelling it implausible), and while this is one one level an abuse of a mechanism designed to cater for native speakers of EU member languages, it also does mean that there is an excellent corpus of text pairs including Latin.
posted by acb at 9:56 AM on June 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
the Vatican not having a native population arguably disqualifies it from the criteria for nationhood,
I had never thought about this before, but I guess this would be the case. A bit of googling suggests that some ninety years ago a serving woman gave birth there, and more recently (2016) a homeless woman delivered a baby in St Peters’ Square. The story says the mother and child were given an apartment in the Vatican for a year but no word about the child receiving citizenship. Either way, it seems like a fairly killer trivia question.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:10 AM on June 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
I had never thought about this before, but I guess this would be the case. A bit of googling suggests that some ninety years ago a serving woman gave birth there, and more recently (2016) a homeless woman delivered a baby in St Peters’ Square. The story says the mother and child were given an apartment in the Vatican for a year but no word about the child receiving citizenship. Either way, it seems like a fairly killer trivia question.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:10 AM on June 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
Geoffrey Robertson (the human-rights lawyer) covers the question of the validity of the Vatican's statehood in The Case Of The Pope. He does so in the context of the Vatican using diplomatic immunity and sovereignty to shield priests complicit in sexual abuse from their countries' secular authorities. Robertson's conclusion was that, by any fairly applied criterion, the Vatican would not be considered a state.
posted by acb at 10:20 AM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 10:20 AM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by zaixfeep at 11:14 AM on June 29, 2019 [5 favorites]
But "roomalaiset" is a plural! So you must use the... plural imperative! "Menkää!"
Now write it out a hundred times. Hail Caesar!
posted by Soi-hah at 12:38 PM on June 29, 2019 [9 favorites]
I found out last week about the Order of Malta, a Catholic lay religious order that is behind a lot of medical charity work. It is also a sovereign state, has diplomatic relations with (and embassies in) a number of countries, can
issue passports, and has its own stamps. It has observer status at the UN, but has no territory and a population of two.
The world truly is a stranger place than I thought.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:40 PM on June 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
The world truly is a stranger place than I thought.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:40 PM on June 29, 2019 [10 favorites]
Merda!
posted by Termite at 1:52 PM on June 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Termite at 1:52 PM on June 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
It has observer status at the UN, but has no territory and a population of two.
It has a rights of extraterritoriality within the sovereign palazzo and villa in Rome and worldwide has over 500 holders of the SMOM passport. (The Order itself also counts 13,000 knights, dames, and chaplains as member.) Interesting organization. Started off ca AD 1100 as good hearted Italian monks helping pilgrims in Jerusalem, then after the first crusade allowed knightly crusaders to join, men better with swords than bedpans. This crew went into the pilgrim protection field, one thing led to another, they became a fighting order against Islam. High point - the 1565 siege of Malta (read my book). These day, they've gone back to their roots.
posted by BWA at 2:35 PM on June 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
It has a rights of extraterritoriality within the sovereign palazzo and villa in Rome and worldwide has over 500 holders of the SMOM passport. (The Order itself also counts 13,000 knights, dames, and chaplains as member.) Interesting organization. Started off ca AD 1100 as good hearted Italian monks helping pilgrims in Jerusalem, then after the first crusade allowed knightly crusaders to join, men better with swords than bedpans. This crew went into the pilgrim protection field, one thing led to another, they became a fighting order against Islam. High point - the 1565 siege of Malta (read my book). These day, they've gone back to their roots.
posted by BWA at 2:35 PM on June 29, 2019 [8 favorites]
Now write it out a hundred times. Hail Caesar!
posted by Soi-hah
You're gonna have to, well, ummm, first.
posted by zaixfeep at 3:24 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Soi-hah
You're gonna have to, well, ummm, first.
posted by zaixfeep at 3:24 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Jokes aside, I learned (mostly written) Latin in school and I have never regretted it. I'm no linguist, but informally comparing it to modern Italian and sibling languages gives one a sense of the similar living forces pushing English forward from Chaucer through Shakespeare to modern times. I wish I had had more opportunity to hear properly-spoken Latin back then, while written Latin was still fresh in my mind.
posted by zaixfeep at 3:43 PM on June 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by zaixfeep at 3:43 PM on June 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
I read recently (in the comments of a YouTube video, obviously an unimpeachable source), that the Finnish government has begun teaching Sami in schools "again".
Maybe that could have something to do with this.
posted by jamjam at 4:19 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Maybe that could have something to do with this.
posted by jamjam at 4:19 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
Nuntii Latini rang a bell and I was wondering where I had heard about it before and... oh yeah- The Allusionist did a piece on it way back when.
posted by droro at 5:02 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by droro at 5:02 PM on June 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
As one who took a couple semesters of Latin in Middle School, this is sad news. Latin is pretty valuable if you are in medicine or science. The modern language vlosestcto Latin is not Italian. Weirdly, that honor belongs to Romanian.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:13 AM on June 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:13 AM on June 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
‘closest to’ and I need to type slower before coffee...
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:00 AM on June 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:00 AM on June 30, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by Segundus at 8:50 AM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]