For nearly three decades, Finland's YLE radio has broadcast a weekly news programme in Latin to a small group of committed listeners around the globe.

With an audience of just 10,000, Friday was meant to be the end of Nuntii Latini - "news in Latin" - but more than 3,000 Latin aficionados wrote in from around the globe, some in fluent Latin, encouraging the station to save the programme.

YLE leadership listened, agreeing to extend it until at least its 30th anniversary in 2019. "Ne umquam desperaveris," said co-announcer Reijo Pitkaranta, a lecturer in Latin at the University of Helsinki. Loosely translated: "Never give up."

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