INCOURT, Belgium—A modest white schoolhouse near Brussels is in the vanguard of a long-struggling movement of Latin enthusiasts who refuse to say requiescat in pace to the ancient language.

At Schola Nova, dozens of students are required to take up to 10 hours of Latin a week, but they don't dwell just on Virgil or Ovid. They speak what is known as "modern" Latin: The children talk on telephonis gestabilibus (cellphones); they use computatoria (computers) to surf the reticulum interretiale (Internet); and they wear bracas Genuenses (jeans).

The school is the brainchild of founder Stéphane Feye, a bearded Belgian and native speaker of Franco-Gallica (French), who dreams of resurrecting Latin as Europe's lingua franca.

"We have a single money, the euro," Mr. Feye says. "We should have a single language, Latin."

Given the economic problems created by the euro, it might seem like a non sequitur to encourage a single language for the continent. But a hard core of Latin enthusiasts say the language would foster a sense of European unity that's been lacking since the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, which used Latin as one of its official languages.