We all know what AEGEE is: a student organisation that unites different people (students and adults with a young soul) in one big international group with common interests and dreams of travelling. And of course, in this group, like in every other groups of people there are different customs and traditions. Among them are the European Night, Summer and Winter Universities, Agora, NWM and many others.
But it is not a secret that this group of so many people from different parts of Europe has its own language that people use among each other. And I mean not only the special AEGEE terms, as for example antenna or Agora that are special parts of the language. The singularity of the AEGEE language is its international character. The AEGEE language is pretty much like Esperanto.
Only in AEGEE you can meet people who know four or five words in all the European languages and use them often in their speeches. And what is really wonderful is that there are totally no problems with understanding. The standard AEGEE set is: English background with some words in German — for example, «Prost», «Guten Tag» and «Bis bald», one ore two phrases in French — «Bon appetit» or «Bonjour», a song in Italian — «Bella ciao», then «Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro» in Spanish, definitely one of the Polish tongue twisters, that everybody knows but nobody can say right — for example, «wyrewolwerowany kaloryfer». Further diversification depends on the events in which the person has participated — Dutch, Belgian, Serbian, Hungarian, even Russian for those who love the extreme.
In all countries in Europe and the whole world, languages are strongly connected to customs and culture. When foreign people get in touch with the language, they begin to learn more about the culture of the country and the country itself and knowledge is the beginning of understanding and tolerance. It is especially important when we have an aim to build up a new society in which people identify with one big country whose name is «the world».
Written by Alexandra Antokhina, AEGEE-Moskva