Cantus

A cantus (Latin for 'singing', derived from 'canere'), is an activity organised by Flemish and Dutch student organisations and fraternities. A cantus mainly involves singing traditional songs and drinking some to a lot of beer. It is governd by strict traditional rules. The use of this dates back a few centuries and was inspired by German student organisations, however some of the songs that are sung date back to the Middle Ages.

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The songs are compiled in what the students refer to as the codex, which contains the club anthems of most student organisations and hundreds of songs in various languages, such as Dutch, French, English, German, Latin and Afrikaans. Nearly all of the songs predate World War II and refer to either drinking, the student's (love) life or the history and past of the home country, city or region. They usually have easy and familiar melodies.

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For this reason, some songs are typically sung more by students of one city or another, e.g. students from Gent will not sing songs about Leuven and vice versa, or they will simply replace instances of one city with another. Also due to the old nature of the songs, some of them have in the past years been controversial because they are seen by political correct people as sexist, right-wing or downright racist.

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In most of the Flemish region the codex has for years been published by the KVHV-Leuven (Katholiek Vlaams Hoogstudenten Verbond or Catholic Flemish Students Union). In Brussels it is published by the jointly by Brussels Senioren Konvent and Polytechnische Kring.

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Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...

Flemish: Flemish (in Dutch Vlaams, French flamand, German fl?misch) can either refer to...

Dutch: Dutch usually refers to:...