# Colony



## spakh

In English colony means a region or country ruled or created by another country and colonist is the founder of colony. I think it is a similar word in most European languages. Whereas it is 'sömürge' in Turkish, meaning a region exploited by another one and colonist is 'sömürgeci', the exploiter. It naturally drew my attention Europeans gave a name which is not disapproving. Whereas in Turkish sömürgeci is evil, exploiting, using resources of a country without regarding its natives. So I wonder if there are original words in any other languages for colony that is not approving.

Thanks


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## Chazzwozzer

We also use *koloni *very often in Turkish, right? Well, my history book seems to like it pretty much. In fact, *koloni* refers to more than one thing. Look it up.

No surprise, it comes from French, *colonie.*


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## Kraus

In Italian, "colonia".


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## Etcetera

In Russian, it's колония, and the country which owns colonies is called метрополия. 
The word колония, when used to describe a country's territory beyond its borders, doesn't have any negative connotations. But колония may also mean a kind of prison to which people are sent for their crimes.


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## avalon2004

In Greek it is* η αποικία *_[apikía] _which is a linked to_ *από* ([away]from) _and_ *οίκος *(home)_.


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## DrWatson

The Finnish word for "colony" is *siirtokunta*. If the colony is a whole country, it's called *siirtomaa*. *Siirto* is a noun derived from the verb *siirtää*, meaning "to move" as in to move something from one place to another. *Kunta* is difficult to translate. It's an area or a district of a sort, but also used for referring to e.g. a municipality. *Maa *means "land" or "ground".

*Siirtokunta* and *siirtomaa* are very neutral words and don't imply to exploitation of land or native inhabitants.


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## Aleco

Koloni in Norwegian


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## Lemminkäinen

Aleco said:


> Koloni in Norwegian





Etcetera said:


> But колония may also mean a kind of prison to which people are sent for their crimes.



We have almost the same in Norwegian; *straffekoloni*, which means something like _penal colony_.

Anecdote: I remember when learning about the colonizing of Africa in history class, our teacher would always call it *kolonialiseringen* (the correct word is *koloniseringen*). 
There is an unrelated word, *kolonial*, which means a grocer's shop - imagining the Brits and French building these all over Africa was a good way of passing time in class


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## elroy

Arabic: 

colony: مستعمرة (_musta'mara_) 
colonist: مستعمر (_musta'mir_)

I would say these words are generally negative in Arabic.


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## jazyk

In Portuguese:

Colony: colônia.
Colonist: colonizador.


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## Trina

Etcetera said:


> [...] But колония may also mean a kind of prison to which people are sent for their crimes.


Funny you should say that ... Australia was a colony of the British Empire and was often referred to as a penal colony as people were sent to Australia as a form of punishment.


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## zaigucis

Latvian: kolonija


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## epasf

Spanish:
Colony: colonia
Colonist: colonizador


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## robbie_SWE

Romanian: _colonie, colonizator(-oare)_

Swedish: _koloni, kolonisatör_

I don't think that they have negative meanings. It naturally depends on the context too. 

 robbie


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## Maja

In Serbian:
kolonija / колонија


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## Whodunit

In German: *Kolonie*


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## spakh

Thank you all
As I see from the answers only Arabic and Turkish words have negative meanings for colony. I wish there were examples of other languages (especially Asian, etc. ones) because there is a mass of European ones and none have negative meanings.
BTW I learned another word for colony. That's 'sağmal ülke' from Turkish verb sağ- meaning milk, -al is affix, and ülke is land.  It literarily means a land being milked, it is figurative and quite logical.(of course negative again)


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## frone

In Indonesian:

colonialism = pen*jajah*an
colonist = pen*jajah*

The stem is "*jajah*", and the infinitive is "men*jajah*" which can means "to possess", "to reign", "to control", "to overcome", "to conquer", "to subdue"...

Hm.
Do they sound negative?


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## ronanpoirier

Hungarian:
Colony = Gyarmat
Colonist = Gyarmatos


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## Flaminius

*Japanese:*
植民地 or 殖民地 (both read, _shokuminchi_) - colony
The former replaced the latter in the post-war kanji reformation.

* Mandarin:*
殖民地 zhímíndì - colony

The Chinese characters respectively mean;
殖 increase
植 plant
民 people
地 land, area.

In toto, colony is "the land where people are increased/planted."


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## ireney

avalon2004 said:


> In Greek it is* η αποικία *_[apikía] _which is a linked to_ *από* ([away]from) _and_ *οίκος *(home)_.



Just a note here: 

The word has no negative connotations because well, it comes from the ancient Greeks. Ancient Greek colonies were city-states themselves so a colony (apikia) is not a bad thing per se, it doesn't mean that you exploit the others (we didn't go for the whole land; just the premium sites for harbours  ). Depending on the context however it can have negative connotations obviously. 

Αποκιοκρατία that could be translated as coloniocracy I guess has very negative meaning since it refers to the policy of creating colonies to exploit.

I think, and I hope it is not misunderstood, the reason lies in the ways different people "experienced" colonies. For those nations who didn't at first made colonies for explotation-of-the-natives reasons (no matter what happened afterwards) the word doesn't have a necessarily evil meaning. For those who never in their history went for colonies (both Arabs and Turks went only for conquests  ) but have experienced the evil of what colonies became later on, it has a negative meaning. But that's just my opinion.


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## spakh

ireney said:


> Αποκιοκρατία that could be translated as coloniocracy I guess has very negative meaning since it refers to the policy of creating colonies to exploit.
> 
> I think, and I hope it is not misunderstood, the reason lies in the ways different people "experienced" colonies. For those nations who didn't at first made colonies for explotation-of-the-natives reasons (no matter what happened afterwards) the word doesn't have a necessarily evil meaning. For those who never in their history went for colonies (both Arabs and Turks went only for conquests  ) but have experienced the evil of what colonies became later on, it has a negative meaning. But that's just my opinion.


 
The way you think is right I can say, though Indonesians(frone's answer), Chinese or Japanese had no colonies like Europeans but theirs have no negative connotations. I think only exception is that apokiokratia you wrote.


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## Flaminius

spakh said:


> . . .but theirs have no negative connotations.



I cannot ascertain for Indonesian, but "colony" has very negative connotations in Japanese and Chinese.  True, those words may not be etymologically negative, but the usage in today's discourse is, needless to day, negative.


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## Setwale_Charm

Hi!
In some languages (Russian, for example) the word "colony" is often used to denote a specially organised settlement for keeping prisoners, young delinquents etc or a prison itself. My question is: in what other languages is this word used with the same meaning?


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## Hakro

In  Finnish it's not exactly the same word but quite close:

colony = usually _siirtokunta_, sometimes _siirtola_
prison  colony = _vankisiirtola_

Also word _vankisiirtokunta_ exists but it's used only for prison colonies abroad, like Australia, French Guayana etc.


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## Ilmo

But which of the meanings of the word "colony" you mean?
Actually, I was a bit astounded when I found out that my printed English-Finnish Dictionary does not even mention the meaning that comes to my mind every time when I hear that word, namely "a subordinated land subdued by a colonialist state". No, there were only three other meanings, words like settlement and community
However, those words in *Finnish* are very close to each other:
*siirtomaa* - a land subdued by a colonialist state
*siirtokunta* - settlement, for instance a (Finnish) settlement in a foreign country
*siirtola*, most often as a part of a compound word like:
*työsiirtola* - "work colony", penal colony used in general for delinquents of minor grade, especially drunken drivers.
*kesäsiirtola -* "summer colony", where the urban kids can spend at least a part of their summer holidays

By the ways, when I looked in the WR English-Spanish Dictionary, there was as the only meaning the following:

From the Diccionario Espasa Concise © 2000 Espasa Calpe:
*colony* ['kɒlənɪ] _nombre_ colonia

From the WordReference Supplement © 2006 WordReference.com: 
*colony*:
Compound Forms:*penal colony*nfcolonia penal


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## Frank06

Hi,


Setwale_Charm said:


> Hi!
> In some languages (Russian, for example) the word "colony" is often used to denote a specially organised settlement for keeping prisoners, young delinquents etc or a prison itself. My question is: in what other languages is this word used with the same meaning?


In *Dutch* we would say 'strafkolonie' ('straf' means punishment). But then we're talking about e.g. Australia, where prisoners were sent to.
'Kolonie' in Dutch can also mean a place where (young) people with health problems are sent to to get better, quite the contrary of the Russian usage .

Groetjes,

Frank


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## olivinha

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> 'Kolonie' in Dutch can also mean a place where (young) people with health problems are sent to to get better, quite the contrary of the Russian usage .
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank


 
In Brazil we have something similar, *colonia de ferias *(literally "vacation colony"), which means summer camp, where parents (gladly!) send their kids in summer.
O


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## übermönch

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> In *Dutch* we would say 'strafkolonie' ('straf' means punishment). But then we're talking about e.g. Australia, where prisoners were sent to.
> 'Kolonie' in Dutch can also mean a place where (young) people with health problems are sent to to get better, quite the contrary of the Russian usage .
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank


It's exactly the same word with the same meaning in German!


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## Setwale_Charm

Come!!! Do all parents except Russian (ex-Soviet) ones so much love and care for their offspring that they create friendly colonies for them??  Is that only the Soviet backgraound that I have seen making a colony what it was meant to be according to their ideology?


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## kusurija

In Czech:
Kolonie  _or_
Závislé území (depended area)
other meaning of kolonie: area with not so clear/good social status (maily suburbs) in own teritory. Or teritory with special status as e.g. "zahrádkářská kolonie" = gardening plantation
or "kolonie bakterii" bacterial colony

In Lithuanian:
Kolonija


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## Mjolnir

*Hebrew* has קולוניה (_colonia_) and מושבה (_moshava_).

Both words are pretty neutral.


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