The Vatican is to launch its first radio bulletin in Latin, with translators facing the challenge of how to render modern concepts such as the suicide bomber, mini-skirt and popcorn into the language of Horace and Cicero.
The first five-minute bulletin will be broadcast on Vatican Radio on Saturday, becoming a regular weekly event.
The programme will be called Hebdomada Papae, notitiae vaticanae latine redditae or The Pope’s week – Vatican news in Latin.
Latin may be regarded as a dead language by much of the world but it is still in daily use by the Holy See.
Pope Benedict famously announced his historic resignation in 2013 in Latin, to the bewilderment of an audience of archbishops, few of whom understood what he was saying.
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His successor, Pope Francis, has a Twitter account in Latin, @Pontifex_ln, writing as Papa Franciscus. He has nearly a million followers in Latin, in addition to the many other languages he tweets in.
Vatican translators have had to come up with some ingenious ways of communicating contemporary concepts into Latin.
A suicide bomber, for instance, is rendered as voluntarius suis interromptor while xenofobia is exterarum gentium odium.
Latin equivalents of modern terms are often tongue-twisters, such as Certaminibus Mundialibus Sphaeromachiae for the football World Cup, or follis canistrīque ludus for basketball.
Much of the Latin in use today has been invented by contemporary scholars and would not have been known to the Romans.
There is a word, for instance, for popcorn – máizae grana tosta, or toasted maize grains.
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In the unlikely event that Vatican newscasters have to refer to cowboys, they will use the Latin word armentárius, while a drug is medicamentum stupefactīvum.
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A miniskirt is a tunícula minima – again, probably not a word that will be used very often – while an April Fool’s Joke is a ludificátio Calendarum Aprílium.
The Vatican’s Latinists have even come up with a term for hotpants – brevíssimae bracae femíneae, which translates as women’s very short trousers.
A cigarette is a fístula (the Latin word for tube) nicotiāna and a snack bar is the long-winded thermopólium potórium et gustatórium.
"With this weekly bulletin, we want to breathe new life into the official language of the Catholic Church," said Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican’s director of communications.
“We don’t see it as a nostalgic nod to the past, but as a challenge that looks to the future."
The job of writing the bulletin is the responsibility of the Office of Latin Letters, a Vatican department that translates documents into Latin.
“We welcome the project because we’ve noticed a growing interest in the use of Latin today, both in how it is written and how it is spoken,” said Monsignor Waldermar Turek, who is in charge of the Latin office.
“There may not be many people in the world who still speak Latin but we’re very happy that there will this bulletin each week, and that it will communicate news about the Holy Father and the Vatican.”
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