English words related to Lat. oblīvīscī
Eng. oblivion
As we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Spanish olvidar,
which descends from Vulgar Latin *oblidare and, ultimate from Latin oblīvīscī,
does not have an English cognate. However, English does have a few words that descend
from Latin words that were derived from that Latin verb, in Latin, all of which
were listed in the previous section. Of those, the words that English has borrowed
are the noun oblivion and the adjective oblivious.
Eng. oblivion [əˈblɪvɪən] is a late 14th century
loanword probably directly from Lat. oblīvĭōnem, accusative form
of the noun oblīvĭō ‘a being forgotten, forgetfulness, oblivion’
(L&S), the first word in the list in §2.3.
It was originally borrowed with the meaning ‘the state or fact of forgetting or
having forgotten; forgetfulness; (also) freedom from care or worry’ (OED). It seems
that Old French also borrowed this word, also as oblivion, a bit earlier,
in the 13th century, so English may have borrowed oblivion through French
and not directly from written Latin. Interestingly, this word has not survived in
the French language and no modern dictionary seems to carry it. The OED tells us
that the noun oblivion has traditionally been ‘frequently used with
reference to the River Lethe in Greek Mythology, which was supposed to produce
a state of forgetfulness in those who drank from its waters’ (OED), cf. Figure
108
in §2.1
above.
Later senses acquired by this English word include two variants
of the original sense from the 16th century, namely ‘Forgetfulness resulting
from inattention or carelessness; heedlessness, disregard’ and ‘Intentional
overlooking of an offence, esp. a political one; amnesty, pardon’ (OED). A second
major sense is from the 15th century, namely ‘the state or condition of being
forgotten; (also, more generally) obscurity, nothingness, void, death’ (OED).
The Latin noun oblīvĭō is derived from the verb oblīvīscī
by means of the ubiquitous noun-forming suffix ‑ĭōn‑ in Latin (the nominative
ending is ‑ĭō, which
fuses derivational suffix and the inflection suffix, cf. Part II, Chapter 12).
This suffix is typically added to the passive participle (or supine) stem of
the verb, but in this case, it is added to the present stem oblīv‑ not
the supine stem oblīt‑, for reasons which like much about the history of
this verb are not clear.
Most dictionaries
give two main senses for the English word oblivion, one having to do with
‘the fact or condition of forgetting’ and the other with ‘the condition or state
of being forgotten’ (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate). This word is typically found
in semi-idiomatic expressions or collocations such as fade/sink/slip/slide
into oblivion, consign/cast something/somebody to oblivion, destined/doomed
to oblivion, and save somebody/something from oblivion. These senses
of Eng. oblivion translate into Spanish as olvido ‘forgetting’
(see §2.3.3 above). Another sense of the noun oblivion
is ‘the state of being unconscious or unaware: the state of not knowing what is
going on around you’, as in She drank herself into oblivion (MWALD). This
second, ‘unconsciousness’ sense, can be translated into Spanish by inconsciencia
‘unconsciousness’ or similar words, as in Bebió/tomó hasta perder el conocimiento
‘She drank until she passed out’. Other synonymous verbal expressions meaning ‘drink
into oblivion’ are beber/tomar para olvidar, beber/tomar para ahogar
las penas, and ahogar las penas en alcohol (Granada University English-Spanish
Dictionary).
As we saw, English has a number of expressions with oblivion
in them. The following are the most common ones and how they are typically rendered
in Spanish:
- cast into oblivion: arrojar al olvido, enterrar en el olvido
- consign
to oblivion: relegar
al olvido
- destined
to oblivion: destinado/abocado
al olvido
- doomed
to oblivion: condenado/abocado
al olvido
- fade into oblivion: desvanecerse, evanescerse,
desaparecer, caer en la oscuridad/en el olvido
- fall into oblivion: caer en el olvido / en desuso
- rescue/save from oblivion: rescatar del olvido
Some English dictionaries also mention two other, less
common senses for Eng. oblivion. One is ‘destruction or extinction’
(COED) or ‘the state of being destroyed’ (MWALD), as in The little village
was bulldozed into oblivion to make way for the airport (MWALD). The other
is a legal, historical use, which we already saw was mentioned in the OED, which
can be defined as ‘amnesty or pardon’ (COED) or ‘official overlooking of
offenses; amnesty’ (AHD). English-Spanish dictionaries do not give translations
for these rare senses of the word oblivion.
Eng. oblivious
The other English
word that is related to the Latin verb from which the Spanish verb olvidar
is ultimately derived is the adjective oblivious [ə'blɪvɪəs]. English
borrowed this word in the 15th century from Classical Latin oblīvĭōsus ‘forgetful’, the fifth word on the
list in §2.3
of words derived from the verb oblīvīscī. The original meaning of Eng. oblivious was the same as the
word had in Latin, namely ‘forgetful’, but that meaning is rare today. Another
sense for Eng. oblivious since the middle of the 19th century and its
most common sense today is ‘unaware or unconscious of’ (OED), followed by a
prepositional phrase with the prepositions of or to. Two examples
of this word in use are: He was completely oblivious of [=unaware of] the
fact that he’d offended them, and She kept dancing, oblivious to everyone
around her (Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
The main
sense of Eng. oblivious (to/of) can be translated into Spanish in
a number of ways, such as inconsciente (de), ajeno (a), ignorante
(de), sin darse cuenta (de), haciendo caso omiso (a). e.g. He
was totally oblivious of what was happening > Estaba totalmente ajeno de lo que
estaba ocurriendo (Vox); He was oblivious to the pain he caused > No se daba cuenta or era
inconsciente del dolor que causaba (Collins).
From the
adjective oblivious, English has created other derived words, which are
less common. The two main ones are the abstract noun obliviousness ‘the state
of being oblivious’ and the adverb obliviously
‘in an oblivious manner’. Even less common is the adjective oblivial,
found in few dictionaries. Its meaning is ‘causing oblivion’. Some dictionaries
say that oblivial was created in English in the early 19th century from
the stem obliv‑i‑ and the Latinate adjectival suffix ‑al derived from
Lat. ‑āl‑(is) (OED), though some Latin dictionaries give oblīvĭālis
as an actually attested Latin word (Gaffiot). A later author even derived the
abstract noun obliviality from that adjective in the early 20th century,
with the meaning ‘liability to be forgotten’ (OED). The words oblivial and
obliviality never really caught on in English, though some dictionaries,
such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Webster’s New Third
International Unabridged Dictionary (WNTIU) maintain them. The former, but
not the latter, tells us that the words and obsolete or rare.
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