Posted on 10/24/2006 2:33:03 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
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.
'Eternal language'
I am in a hotel somewhere comfortably north of Helsinki. It is off-season, so the place is deserted. There are dark brown mock logs, lining one side of the room. Fake beams on the ceiling, chocolate-box pictures on the walls.
There is also a man in the corner of the room singing Elvis Presley's songs in Latin, like Can't Help Falling In Love - or Non adamare non possum.
It sounds a little like Italian but rather more stilted - like Italian sung by a Finnish person.
We are a long way from Memphis.
--ELVIS IN LATIN
Surrender - Nunc aeternitatis
It's Now Or Never - Nunc hic aut numquam
Can't Help Falling In Love - Non adamare non possum
Wooden Heart - Cor ligneum
Love Me Tender - Tenere me ama
The singer is Dr Jukka Ammondt, an academic whose twin passions, it appears to him, march in lock-step.
"The legend of Elvis Presley lives for ever, and it's of course very important to sing Elvis Presley's songs in the Latin language, because Latin is the eternal language," he says.
Mia Lahti, who edits the EU presidency website, is like many Finns an optimist at heart. But why do a website in Latin?
"The website is in English and French," she says.
But they have their secret language: Conspectus rerum Latinus, or "Latin News in Brief".
"I know there are people who are angry because, for example, in their childhood they had to read compulsory Latin. But also I think it might be interesting to read the news in brief in Latin," Ms Lahti believes.
Latin revenge
Lurking within the world of EU Latin, which is only marginally more difficult to comprehend than EU English, is one delightful statistic - more people subscribe to the newsletter in Latin than to the one in French.
The Finns are clearly having their revenge on French President Jacques Chirac, who once dismissed their food as the worst in the EU.
The news in Latin on national radio gets 75,000 listeners, which may not sound like much, but on a per capita basis is more than some BBC Radio 4 programmes get.
This is the final piece in the Finland Latin jigsaw.
"In Latin we have more listeners in the world than for Finnish broadcasts," explains Professor Tuomo Pekannen, who does the translations.
"Latin is more known abroad than Finnish," he adds.
Perhaps Finland wants to dominate the global news agenda in the same way Elvis once dominated the music scene.
That Perseus site at tufts.edu is very good.
I have formally studied Latin, and taken a look at some other languages on my own.
To answer your question, the 1st declension ablative singular ending in -a should have a macron.
Also the 3rd conjugation, 2nd person singular future passive ending in -eris should have a macron on the e, while the 3rd conjugation, 2nd person singular present passive should not.
I got a Greek program some time long ago -- dang, in order to get credit you have to get all the diacritical marks right. It's kind of discouraging.
The only one I can see that is really necessary is the leading ' (as in 'ustera, and if you were transliterating, you would write hystera) -- although if I had formally studied it in school, I might see the issue differently.
BTTT
+
If you want on (or off) this Catholic and Pro-Life ping list, let me know!
I haven't found all that many sites -- but I'm going to say no -- and how would you do it? I see ASCII 226 is an a with a circumflex with many PC fonts -- but not necessarily with other fonts and other platforms (although my HTML is a little weak -- maybe there is a way).
Even in poetry books they're not there -- you have to figure them out based on the meter.
That's very cool! I will check it out in more detail at home. Did you do the programming?
Britania est insula. Paulus est agricola.
At least one of my ancestors came from the Isle of Man in 1849. (Potato famine there, too.) In my lifetime the number of living people whose first language was Manx went from thousands to zero. Sounds like genocide to me.
Yep. Pretty easy, I'm surprised it hasn't been done before. I learned my Greek and Latin on the Perseus Project website, which has similar hyperlinked words but only for static, pre-selected texts. Its server has been slow for six years, so my site also provides a workaround for its lazy dictionary.
I hope to get a classical/Biblical Greek dictionary up and running, too, but Greek fonts are not standardized so it'll take much more work.
This thread is officially awesome.
Nope. It's a singular. "Rap star's girlfriend". ;-)
The Romans didn't have a name for Finland, because they never got that far. Suomi is the Finnish name for the country. Patria being feminine, that seemed the logical usage.
Paulus est agricola nautaque.
Well that explains it. Its the "English" that I don't understand!
bump
amazing
Maybe in the later empire, you could be right, although not much direct contact.
Do you know what the Latin name for Finland is, then? My geographical Latin doesn't extend beyond Germania, and now that I've checked it I don't find Finland or Scandinavia in my Latin dictionary. I think Finlandia was a term developed later.
Like Scotia in Nova Scotia. Scotland, of course, was Caledonia.
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