Someone has gone to the trouble to translate Harry Potter into ancient Greek, so it shouldn’t surprise you that there are news services out there that specialize in delivering the news in Latin, or rather the nuntii Latini. The Finnish radio network YLE started it off many years ago, and now with the advent of advanced digital media and broadband internetworking, you can go to the Nuntii Latini page, click on the “Recitatio” button, and listen to the latest news just like Julius Caesar would have. The big newsflash from Gaul this week: “Velamen capitis in scholis Francorum prohibitum.”
What’s really entertaining is to listen to the Finnish reader plow through a story, and then listen to the Latin news from Radio Bremen in Germania, er, I mean Germany. It may be the same language, but it sure doesn’t sound like it. Plus the stories are more hip for the sensibilities of the cutting edge Latinist. Instead of French hats, we’re getting moonbases and space travel… check out this coverage of Bush’s proposal for a statione in Luna.
George Bush Unitarum Civitatum Americae praesidens in oratione dixit Americanos viginti annis stationem spatialem in Luna instituturos esse, e qua postea naviculis spatialibus in Martem planetam proficiscerentur. Bush hoc anno iterum munus praesidentis petiturus est.
Now I’d like to hear George W. say that. I am reminded of Dan Quayle regretting that he didn’t brush up on his Latin before his tour of Latin America.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 