selva

Forms

selva f (plural selvas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin silva (“forest, wood”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas sees clear marks of popular transmission in it, and thinks it was probably the old inherited word for “forest”, since bosque came in relatively late and the Arabism jara could not have been very old when Castilian literature begins.^[3] The variant Old Spanish silva, found in a manuscript of Juan Ruiz and in 15th-century verse, matches the form of the western Iberian languages, where Galician silva and Portuguese silva came to mean “bramble”.^[3]

The same Latin word is Italian selva, Catalan selva, Occitan selva, Aragonese selva, Asturian selva and Old French seuve.^[5][1][6]

De Vaan finds no etymology for the Latin noun.^[7] Wiktionary reports the traditional derivation from Proto-Indo-European *sel- or *swel- (“beam, board”), with a comparison to Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē, “wood, timber”), but notes De Vaan's doubts.^[1] The OLD suggests, with a “perhaps”, a connection with ξύλον (xúlon, “wood”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) translates Isaiah: cum se movien los albores de la selva delant el viento “as the trees of the forest move before the wind”.^[9] The Fuero de Zorita (1218–1250) has a chapter on whoever sets fire to a selua, and the Fueros de Aragón of 1247 speak of the common wood where a man goes to cut the tree he needs.^[9] The meaning was “wood, forest”.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

Corominas's first record is the Crónica general of about 1275, with la selva Nemea.^[3][4] Bosque soon gained ground and pushed selva into archaic and poetic language.^[3] When Juan de Mena revived it as a noble, Latin-flavoured word, it was so forgotten that Nebrija took it for Mena's own invention: selva dixo Juan de Mena por bosque.^[3][10] Corominas holds that it is not a Latinism or an Italianism, since poets used it before Italian influence; the books of chivalry, Cervantes and above all Góngora kept it in literary use.^[3]

Covarrubias glossed it as montaña “wooded hill”, and the Diccionario de Autoridades as a place full of trees and scrub.^[11][12] The Academy recorded the poetic phrase fatigar la selva “to hunt big game” in 1843.^[13] In the 19th century the word settled on the sense of a dense, tangled forest of the tropical kind, which Autoridades already hints at.^[3] Today it also means a disorderly mass of things and a confused, intricate question.^[2][14]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has selva.^[9]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita has selua.^[9]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón speak of the common selua.^[9]
• c. 1275 – the Crónica general, Corominas's first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija treats selva as Juan de Mena's word for bosque.^[10]
• 1548 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, in the form silva.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias glosses it as montaña.^[11]
• 1843 – the Academy records fatigar la selva.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology for the first time.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, uncultivated area thickly covered with trees, especially a tropical jungle or rainforest.^[2][14][1]
2. (figurative) A disorderly abundance of something: Su mesa es una selva de papeles.^[2][14]
3. (figurative) Confusion; a tangled, intricate question (cuestión intrincada).^[2]

Word family

• selvoso
• enselvar

Related words

• salvaje
• selvático
• silvano
• silvático
• silvestre
• silvicultura
• silvoso
• Latin silva
• Catalan selva

Usage notes

Set phrases include la ley de la selva “the law of the jungle” and selva virgen “virgin forest”.^[17][1] A minor homograph selva, the fruit of the service tree (standard serba, from Latin sorba), is recorded in Zamora, and Terreros knew it as a name of the tree.^[18][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. selva
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 196
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. selva
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. selva
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. selva
10. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. selva
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1292
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 71
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 660
14. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. selva
15. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. selva
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 965
17. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. selva
18. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6232
19. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 458