Latin hip-hop highlights Festival of the Classics

"Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris/ Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior" ("I hate and I love. Why do I do it, perchance you might ask? I don't know, but I feel it happening to me and I'm burning up.") sings Ista, a German rap group that uses Latin verse in its performances.

The group was a highlight of the European Festival of Latin and Greek, an event staged to show the world that Latin is a living language.

“Twenty years ago Latin really was a dead language,” said Marc-Olivier Girard, a teacher and an actor who is a member of the Paris Latin Circle. “It's being relaunched because people realise that it's part of our heritage. It's a monument, like the Eiffel Tower or the Tower of London. Latin circles are springing up all over the place. There are about 30 of them in Europe now.”