Not dead, just sleeping

I found an interesting article during the holidays. Finland (which has always struck me as an odd place) is running the European Union for the next six months, and has decided to publish weekly news bulletins in Latin. Why? I'm not quite sure, but it sounds fun to me. Here's what Dr Pitkaranta (who translates these bulletins into Latin) said: "Latin is not dead- it is still very much in use in different forms across the world today... Italians, French and Spaniards all speak a new form of Latin. I hope EU documents are soon translated into Latin which is such a clear language." The Finns have actually been broadcasting the news in Latin for over 15 years, which is a bit odd as the Finnish language itself is not a descendant of Latin. But as Dr Gibson (a Latin professor from England) said in the same article "perhaps the Finns realise Latin still provides a common linguistic and cultural heritage to Europe." You can subscribe to the news bulletins by going to this website.