忘 | wàng | wáng

In Mandarin Chinese, 忘 (Pinyin: wàng 🔊 or wáng 🔊) means “to forget”.

According to Wiktionary, 忘 is both phono-semantic and ideogrammic compound:

phonetic 亡 (OC *maŋ, “to lose, disappear, flee”) + semantic 心 (“heart”).

Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

As per 亡 (obscure) + 心 heart/emotions → obscure state of mind, in the form of forgetfulness or overlooking something → forget; overlook; leave behind.

As forgetting usually has negative connotations, 忘 is often found in combination with 不 “not”: 不忘 (bù wàng), “don’t forget”:

• 念 + 念 + 不 + 忘 = 念念不忘 (niàn niàn bù wàng): to keep in mind constantly; to never forget
• 永 + 志 + 不 + 忘 = 永志不忘 (yǒng zhì bù wàng): to remember forever and never forget
• 安 + 不 + 忘 + 危 = 安不忘危 (ān bù wàng wēi): to be mindful of possible danger in time of peace

But why should it have negative connotations? One of my university professors used to call the ability to forget a golden feature of our brain. Without it, our memories, to quote Funes the Memorious, would be “like a garbage heap”. Not only that. In his Nobel Lecture, Elie Wiesel said:

it is surely human to forget, even to want to forget. The Ancients saw it as a divine gift. Indeed if memory helps us to survive, forgetting allows us to go on living.

Like other hanzi with 心 in the lower part (思, 想, 念, 意, 息), 忘 reminds me of a sailship.

Other compounds of 忘 include

• 忘 + 我 = 忘我 (wàngwǒ): selfless
• 忘 + 年 = 忘年 (wàngnián): to disregard age
• 忘年 + 交 = 忘年交 (wàngniánjiāo): friend despite the difference in age
• 勿 + 忘 + 草 = 勿忘草 (wùwàngcǎo): forget-me-not

Haiku time! In Japanese, the verb “to forget” is 忘れる (わすれる), wasureru. Here are three haiku where you can see the stem 忘れ, wasure:

燕や 何を忘れて 中がへり 乙由 Tsubakuro ya nani wo wasurete chūgaeri The swallow Turns a somersault; What has it forgotten? Otsuyu 長閑さや 早き月日を 忘れたり 太祇 Nodokasa ya hayaki tsukihi wo wasuretari Calm days, The swift years Forgotten. Taigi 忘れ草は 咲󠄁けど忘れね 昔哉 諸九尼 Wasuregusa wa sakedo wasurenu mukashi kana The forget-me-not is blooming; But the things of long ago, — How can I forget them? Shokyū-ni * (All haiku translated by R.H. Blyth)

More photos related to thought, day-lily, forget-me-not, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

*

In Blyth’s book (Haiku vol. 3, Summer—Autumn, Hokuseido Press, 1952, p. 313), this haiku appears as わすれ草は咲󠄁けどわすれね昔哉 For the purposes of this post, I took the liberty to replace わす with 忘. Blyth also writes in a footnote to the word “forget-me-not” (ibid., p. 314): The Japanese is a “forget-me” flower, the day-lily. In other words, 忘れ草, which Blyth translated as “forget-me-not”, is a completely different flower, Hemerocallis fulva. Shokyū-ni (1714—1781) probably wasn’t even aware of the European forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica. According to Wiktionary, the word 忘れな草 (wasurenagusa), a calque of English forget-me-not, was first attested in 1913. So it seems that, for the benefit of English readers, Blyth radically changed the meaning of the haiku. It really should be The “forget-me” flower is blooming; But the things of long ago, — How can I forget them? This makes much more sense.