The Language of the 4th of July

The Fourth of July is much more than a holiday: it's a cultural package. There are special Fourth of July decorations, songs, poems, quotes, and cards; Fourth of July knick-knacks, crafts, recipes, and treats; and of course Fourth of July fireworks, parades, and parties. And then there is a "Fourth of July language", i.e. a subset of vocabulary used a lot in the weeks preceding and culminating on July 4th.

Here is a sampler of the language of the Fourth of July along with its linguistic baggage.

blue: The Indo-European ancestor of blue, *bhlewos, did not mean "blue", but "yellow". Its descendants include the Latin flavus (= yellow; cf. flavine), the Greek phalos (= bright, white), and the Old Icelandic bla (= livid; cf. the English expression black and blue, where blue retains the older meaning of "the color of bruised flesh") and blar (= blue). The Old English cognate blaw did not survive. Modern English blue is actually a loan from Old French (blo, bleu) via Middle English bleu (>blu >blue).

colony: For a word associated with settling, colony has some pretty mobile ancestry. Its Indo-European ancestral roots *kwel-/*kwol- meant "to turn around" (as in the Greek cognate polos, axis, and the English wheel). By the time of the Latin colonia (< colere = till, inhabit), the meaning had changed dramatically, and a colony (possibly via the Old French colonie) came to mean "a settlement".

declaration: There can be no declaration without clarity-etymologically at least. The word declaration is derived from the verb declare, which essentially means "to clarify". Its Latin ancestor, declarare, is composed of the prefix de- (= away) and the verbal element clarare (= to make clear). (Cf. Latin clarus (= bright, distinct), hence clear, clarity, clarify, etc.)

independence: The word independence is also derived from Latin. At its core there is the Latin verb dependere, "to hang down", "to be suspended from". The prefix in- means "not" or "the opposite of", while the suffix -ence (< Latin -entia) denotes "the state of".

red: The linguistic history of the color red goes all the way back to the Indo-European root *reudh- (aka *roudh- and *rudh-) which, quite predictably (for a change), meant "red". The family of "red" words is quite extensive, and includes russet (< Latin russus), ruby and rubicund (< Latin ruber), rouge (< Latin rubeus), rust, robust, and ruddy.

white: The linguistic family of white is one of light and brightness. Its Indo-European ancestor is *kweid-/*kwid- , which developed into Old Saxon hwit (= white). Some Sanskrit and Slavic cognates signify "light" and "lustrous reflection". Wheat (literally, "white grain") and Whitsun (< Whitsunday< Hwita Sunnandæg, i.e. white Sunday) are also derived from the same root.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Source:
Merriam-Webster Online: http://www.m-w.com