Vale Latin?

Latin’s a dead language

As dead as dead can be

It killed off all the Romans

And now it’s killing me

So, here’s something I’ve been wondering about lately:  where are the new novels in Latin?

Where can I find a whodunnit or a tawdry romance novel in the language that forms one of the two key “Ancient Languages” once considered part of every educated person’s repertoire?

People study Latin at universities all over Europe and in various other places around the world.  In some parts of the world, Latin is still taught to children in schools (and, I suspect, Ancient Greek probably is as well, in some places).

You have people who learnt Latin in school, majored in it at university, became so literate and fluent in the language that they went on to teach it and translate ancient Latin texts into modern languages as their job.

So why isn’t writing new works in Latin a thing?  Or, if it is a thing, why is it such a quiet thing?  As far as I know, the only new Latin/Ancient Greek texts that are readily available for public consumption are the Wikipedia pages that have been translated into those languages.

Wikipedia in Latin is awesome, but I secretly suspect it’s more of a hobbyist thing than a genuine attempt to create new texts for the Latin speaking community.

Is there a Latin speaking community?  Can you travel the world meeting with other learners of Latin and get along famously speaking Latin with each other?  Can you have a Latin pen-pal and go to Latin conventions?  Are there Latin rock bands putting out Latin rock music?  And is there a magazine where people contribute articles, short stories and original poetry in Latin?

Somewhere out there, is someone translating modern language texts into Latin?  Surely the same people who write “new translations” of the Aeneid in English can also write “new translations” of Alice in Wonderland in Latin…

Esperanto is doing it.  All of it.  The travelling to hang out with other speakers, the pen-pals and conventions, the rock music, the magazines, the translations of Alice in Wonderland… and the new works.  People have been writing novellas, short stories and poems in Esperanto pretty much since the day it was invented – and there’s a sizable library of crime novels, science fiction, tawdry romance and translations of modern language classics.

If you can build that kind of a community around a created language, surely you do the same for an ancient one?  And wouldn’t Latin have a larger base to build on?  Thousands of people all over the world learn Latin.

It must surely exist.

They say Latin is a dead language – and I think that’s supposed to mean no one speaks it and no one creates new works in it.  But why?  People were writing scientific papers in the language until just a century or so ago.  (Incidentally, where do those papers fit in with the Latin cannon?  Are people still reading them – are they used as texts in Latin classes?)

I bet you $4.50 that anyone who remotely enjoyed taking Latin in either school or university tried writing new poetry in the language.  It may have been crap, but that’s beside the point.

What isn’t beside the point is the fact that I’ve never seen a book of new Latin poetry advertised (and I’m an academic librarian, so I tend to get ads for that sort of crap sent to me).  Surely someone out there kept writing poetry and eventually created a few pieces worth sharing with the public?

What does it mean to be a living language, apart from the fact that people are still using it and playing with it?  If that’s all it takes, why is Latin dead?  Is it dead, or is it living very quietly?

Could we breath life into the old corpse yet?