
Finland’s weekly news show in Latin cancelled after run of 30 years - situationista
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/28/finland-latin-news-radio-bulletin-nuntii-latini-cancelled-30-years
======
FabHK
The mic drop:

Nuntii Latini finiti

Nuntii Latini Radiophoniae Finnicae Generalis, qui inde ab anno millesimo
nongentesimo undenonagesimo (1989) iam triginta annos septimanatim emittuntur,
post hanc emissionem finiuntur et decreto moderatorum radiophonicorum post
ferias aestivas non continuabuntur. Auscultatoribus, quorum grex ad omnes
orbis continentes amplificatus est, propter fidelitatem gratias quam maximas
agimus et valedicimus.

A translation (not idiomatic English, staying closer to the original, but
better than Google...):

Latin News Terminated

Finnish General Radio's "Latin News", which have been transmitted from here
since 1989 already 30 years weekly, will be terminated after this transmission
and, by decree of the radio directors, not continued after the summer break.
To the listeners, whose flock has grown to all continents of the earth, on
account of their faithfulness we give the greatest possible thanks, and bid
farewell.

~~~
JetSpiegel
This is almost intelligible for this Romance language native...

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schoen
Apparently some students at Western Washington University have started an
analogous project:

[https://nuntiilatini.com/](https://nuntiilatini.com/)

It's interesting to compare the accent of native English speakers and native
Finnish speakers in Latin. :-)

~~~
superpermutat0r
> It's interesting to compare the accent of native English speakers and native
> Finnish speakers in Latin. :-)

Finnish has a phonemic orthography, almost. So it's quite easy to just read
Latin the way it is written.

~~~
schoen
This doesn't necessarily mean that their vowels are closer to ancient Roman
vowels than Americans' vowels are, though, for example.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
The vowels of English are pronounced as narrow diphthongs. This really sets
English apart from the pronunciation of modern European languages, and also
from Latin as reconstructed. Finns certainly have a distinct accent in many
foreign languages, but they do less violence to Latin than people from the USA
or UK.

~~~
asveikau
It's possible for Americans to do the correct vowels, though. We have most of
them elsewhere in the language. I started learning Romance languages fairly
young and at my peak fluency [a little rusty these days] I had people telling
me I sounded near-native in Spanish.

Personally the thing that bothers me most about American accents with these
languages is failure to make diphthongs out of adjacent vowels. An American
accent will stretch a Romance diphthong out into lengthy syllables. For
example in this audio link above, the speaker says _hodie_ has "HOE-dee-ay". I
speculate someone more used to speaking a Romance language would say /'hodje/,
two syllables. (I note English wiktionary has it as 3 syllables. Not sure what
an ancient Roman would do.)

In any case I think a lot of the confusion is orthographic in nature. An
English speaker is used to an <e> being /i/. It's not that they can't do an
/e/ sound if they tried. A lot of people in the US also have very little real
exposure, eg. we have language classes in school where making a real attempt
to drop our accents and interact on a level plane with natives is never even
seriously considered, it's just a place to hold you in a desk and fill out
worksheets.

~~~
learc83
>it's just a place to hold you in a desk and fill out worksheets.

The US education system is incredibly diverse--as is the US as a whole. That
may the case in some schools, but it's certainly not the case everywhere. My
southern high school was suburbun/almost rural and had enough kids on free
lunch to qualify as a low income, but my German classes were extremely
intensive. The French and Spanish classes were no joke either.

And in much of the country almost everyone will interact with native Spanish
speakers fairly often.

------
greendestiny_re
_Sic transit gloria mundi._

~~~
FabHK
Requiescat in pace.

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MasterScrat
Wow, I studied latin for many years, and this would have definitely been
interesting to know then.

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bytematic
Maybe they can do some sort of podcast, change the format a bit? Latin
students would love this, worldwide!

~~~
Mediterraneo10
I suspect many Latin teachers might be uncomfortable with their students
getting into Latin that enthusiastically.

Many high school Latin teachers are actually not very proficient in Latin,
they are merely capable of teaching from a syllabus that is usually quite
modest. Except for some elite schools, Latin is taught just to give students a
taste of the language and expand their vocabulary in their native language by
recognizing Latin borrowings. The pupils aren’t intended to actually master
the language and read non-set texts comfortably, let alone follow Neo-Latin
materials or practice spoken Latin. If the students surpass the syllabus, that
makes things difficult for the teachers. If a student has taken up the
language so enthusiastically, the teacher may simply demand that he/she simply
test out of the course instead of continuing to come to class.

~~~
busterarm
I took 8 years of Latin through Catholic school. By the second year of High
School, we were required to read history texts written in Latin.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> I took 8 years of Latin through Catholic school.

This just proves my point. Catholic schools in the US are private
institutions, and one that would teach Latin with vigor is a rare case.
However:

> we were required to read history texts written in Latin.

It is common for Caesar’s _Gallic War_ to be assigned early on, but students
working through it with the support of a tailor-made glossary and commentary
is not a particularly impressive achievement. _De bello gallico_ (like
Xenophon’s _Anabasis_ in Greek) is assigned precisely because it is an
extremely easy text, and it is not very representative of Latin literature in
general.

If your school expected you to read Livy, or even Tacitus, that definitely
puts it into the “elite” category.

~~~
busterarm
> If your school expected you to read Livy, or even Tacitus, that definitely
> puts it into the “elite” category.

Yes to both :D

~~~
joycian
Livy, Seneca, Cicero, Virgil also featured in my Latin classes. I'm not sure
of the relative difficulty levels anymore, though. All of these were
fascinating for different reasons: Livy for the narrative, Seneca for the
wisdom (see also Montaigne who heavily quotes Seneca in his essays), Cicero
for his personal involvement in Caesarian politics and Virgil for his role as
Augustus' propagandist and continuation of the Homeric tradition.

I should read more of these texts, I remember being really fond of Latin
classes.

Edit: to concur with GP, Caesar's writings (de bello Gallico) were somewhere
in the first half of the curriculum and were definitely regarded as relatively
easy.

------
unmole
Sort of related: India's public broadcaster has had a daily 5 minute bulletin
in Sanskrit for as long as I can remember. A weekly 30 minute news show too
started a few years ago.

~~~
aatharuv
Interestingly enough, Sanskrit is an official language of India, both at the
national level, and in at least one state (Uttarkhand).

~~~
Koshkin
Nice. Looks like the EU, on the other hand, has missed the chance to make
Latin its official language.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
The EU has now expanded to countries – Bulgaria, Greece – where Latin did not
play a major role historically. Even Romania, where the language is Romance,
never employed Classical Latin as a language of learning (Greek and Church
Slavonic were used instead). So, choosing Latin would seem unfair for the
Orthodox world.

~~~
eaandkw
Wouldn't want to be unfair to anyone. Perhaps Esperanto could be the official
language

~~~
sansnomme
Interlingua is better.

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lwhalen
Oh man, I would've watched the HELL out of this show in highschool. Pity, I
didn't even know it existed! I had a beloved Latin teacher back then
(regrettably, he passed years ago) who would've been all over this too.

