We explain what a colony is, the origin of the term and what colonization is. Also, colony in biology and other meanings.
What is a colony?
Although the term colony today has several different meanings, which vary according to its context of use, in general all can be traced in one way or another to a common starting point, which we must look for in the very origin of this word.
This story begins with the Latin term colere, which we can translate today as "inhabit" and at the same time as "cultivate." These senses are different but they are strongly connected, since the idea of living in the same place throughout life was born with the invention of the farming in the distant Neolithic, some 10,000 years ago.
From the Latin verb colere, in any case, it was obtained colonus, that is, "colonist": one dedicated to populating and cultivating a portion of land. Wherever there were several of these colonus, a colony was beginning to exist, a term used by the ancient Romans for any urban foundation that their civilization settled in territories barbarians, that is, in foreign territories.
That is precisely the main meaning of the word colony: an urban settlement in new lands, which depends to a large extent on another distant urban center that governs it (a metropolis).
This meaning becomes very clear if we think about the modern meaning of colonizing: creating colonies. The colonizers are those who entered foreign lands and founded new sites of their culture, as happened very often in the history of the humanity.
The Romans, for example, were great colonizers, who carried their language and their traditions to the different corners of the world to which they expanded their empire. Rome, the capital of the empire, it was still the metropolis, and from there the emperor ruled the many Roman colonies.
Another possible example is the European Empires of the Modern age, which settled in America, Asia Y Africa for colonial purposes, that is, to establish settlements under their control and impose on the inhabitants of foreign lands the social norms, economic, linguistic and cultural that suited the metropolis.
Many former colonies are today independent countries, which struggled to separate administratively from the metropolis and free themselves from colonial laws, which normally concentrated wealth and wealth. can in the metropolis, subjecting the colonies and the citizens colonial to a state of inferiority.
Colony in biology
The term colony, whose etymological and historical origin we have just learned, was loaned to the biology, which uses it to designate a set of living beings Of the same species, which are installed in a territory defined to coexist under principles cooperatives.
It is a behavior observed both in plants Y animals, like in microscopic beings, but that should not be confused with that of multicellularity: in a colony, all living beings fulfill the ordinary functions of a living being, and in some cases they could even leave the colony at a given moment. In others, however, the colonies remain together for life.
Corals are known to form underwater colonies, for example, as do mussels, anchoring themselves to submerged rocks. Another example of a colony is that of penguins, who live together to better defend themselves from their predators, beavers, or so-called eusocial insects: the bees, termites, ants, capable of colonizing a space by literally building a nest on its surface.
Other meanings of the term
In addition to the above, the term colony is used in more specific contexts, with a specific meaning, such as:
- Cologne like synonymous neighborhood. In some Spanish-speaking countries, such as Mexico, the territorial and political subdivisions of the same town they are known as “colonias” instead of the traditional term “neighborhood,” used in a good number of Spanish-speaking countries. Thus, in Mexico City there are Colonia Polanco, Colonia Roma, Colonia Napoles, Colonia del Valle, etc.
- Cologne as a perfume. In many countries "cologne" or "cologne" is used as a synonym for "perfume", and the explanation for this is found in the name of the oldest perfume in history, created in a German city called Köln, that is to say , Cologne. The product was created in the 18th century and was called eau de cologne in French or Kölnisch Wasser in German, that is, Water from (the German city of) Cologne.
- Cologne, the German city. Another curious fact that involves this German city is the origin of its name: it was founded, precisely, as a Roman colony in 38 BC. C., consecrated to the Empress Agripina, wife of Claudio and mother of Nerón. His initial name was Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, but with the passage of time, only the first term remained.