How the number zero was ‘discovered’

Re:How the number zero was ‘discovered’ by happy-go-lucky on Thursday December 08, 2016 @01:46PM (#13132914)

The etymology at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Śūnyatā is helpful.

> "Śūnyatā" (Sanskrit) is usually translated as "emptiness," "hollow, hollowness," "voidness." It is the noun form of the adjective śūnya or śhūnya, plus -tā:

> śūnya means "zero," "nothing," "empty" or "void". Śūnya comes from the root śvi, meaning "hollow".

> -tā means "-ness"

There are many loanwords meaning shunya or zero in many Indian languages and they are all adopted from Sanskrit.

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Re:How the number zero was ‘discovered’ by contingencies on Thursday December 08, 2016 @04:35PM (#13134524)

Śūnya comes from the root śvi, meaning "hollow".

Interesting etymology, from a philosophical perspective. ie. What came first, the circumscribing matter or the non-matter? In this case, via hollowness, the circumscribing matter.

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Re:How the number zero was ‘discovered’ by kazinator on Thursday December 08, 2016 @07:13PM (#13135582)

Any cognates (even distant ones) in any Indo-European tongues?

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Re:How the number zero was ‘discovered’ by happy-go-lucky on Friday December 09, 2016 @12:55AM (#13136970)

Are these what you're looking for? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_vocabulary

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