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.
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