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Latin Lovers Tune In: Vatican Broadcasts News in Language of Ancient Rome

Reuters

   VATICAN CITY - Friends, Romans and Latin lovers -- lend the Vatican
   your ears. Vatican Radio is starting its first regular news bulletin in
   the language of Caesar and Cicero.

   Called "Hebdomada Papae, Notitiae Vaticanae latine reddiate" ("The
   pope's week, Vatican news in the Latin language"), it is the latest in
   a series of initiatives to broaden use of Latin, once a staple of
   Western European education and the language of all Roman Catholic
   services.

   This month, Hebdomada Aenigmatum, a new book of crossword puzzles in
   Latin and ancient Greek, said to be the first with no help or
   definitions in modern languages, hit book stores in Italy.

   The weekly Vatican Radio broadcast, which starts Saturday, will run for
   five minutes and be followed by a half-hour show with Latin
   conversation -- and tips in Italian on using the language of ancient
   Rome in a modern setting.

   "We wanted the official language of the Church to be experienced in
   news just as it is in the daily broadcast of a Mass in Latin," said
   Andrea Tornielli, the editorial director for Vatican communications.

   The program will be produced by the radio's news team and the Vatican
   department that translates and writes official documents in Latin.

   Growing interest

   Luca Desiata, an Italian businessman who published the book of
   crosswords in Latin, said the internet has helped revive interest in
   the language just as more and more schools around the world stopped
   teaching it.

   "We now have Wikipedia in Latin ("Vicipaedia Latina"), about 40 Latin
   Facebook groups around the world -- and the pope's Twitter account in
   Latin is followed by nearly a million people," he told Reuters. "Not
   bad for a dead language."

   Desiata came up with the idea for the crossword book after publishing a
   weekly online Latin puzzle magazine for five years that pulled in
   10,000 subscribers.