Lakota Concept of Zero

[Cantemaza]

Rory M Larson wrote:

>>I was curious if anyone is aware of a Lakota term for the numeric concept
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>of "0" (zero). Most Lakota/English dictionaries I have read give numeric
>terms beginning with "1" (one), and do not have "0" (zero) listed.
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>>While I know of the Lakota terms such as...
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>>wanji'ni = none
>>takuni = nothing
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>>...is this the same as "0" (zero)?
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>>Just wondering,
>>Jonathan
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>Hi Jonathan,
>
>I've checked Buechel, and Edward Starr's "Dictionary of Modern Lakota", and
>neither one seems to have it.  Williamson gives a couple of 'zero' terms
>for Dakota, though:
>
>  osniocoka = ?? (couldn't find a back-translation)
>
>  ta'kus^ni = 'nothing' (Riggs)
>
>Zero is a pretty abstract mathematical concept.  I don't think we had it
>either until it was invented in India and brought to Europe by the Arabs in
>the Middle Ages.  If any of the native languages north of Mexico have it,
>it would probably have been coined recently to match the Euro-American
>term.
>
>Even regular counting terms probably haven't been around too long.  The
>fact that just about everybody seems to use a base-10 counting system shows
>that it started out by matching fingers to quantity.  Finger names are
>pretty volatile, and in a lot of obviously related languages the higher
>counting terms don't agree.  I think across Siouan, the numbers 2, 3, 4,
>and possibly 1, are cognate.  Within MVS, I believe 5, 6, and 10 are added.
>7, 8, and 9 were apparently not standard counting numbers until perhaps a
>few centuries ago, maybe about the time of proto-Dakotan.  Even Osage and
>OP seem to differ on 8 and 9.
>
>There are still languages today whose entire mathematical system consists
>of 1, 2, and many.  I think most of these are in Australia, but at least
>one language in the Amazon, PirahaN, is at about the same level.  Daniel
>Everett, who has studied them for almost thirty years, claims that even
>this is an exaggeration.  "1" is their word for 'small', "2" is their word
>for 'large', and "many" is their word 'cause to come together', used for
>anything composed of discrete elements.  In fact, he claims, their language
>is so devoid of countable quantification that they do not even have terms
>for 'all', 'many', 'most', 'few', 'each', or 'every'!
>
>It looks like counting terms and mathematics have been developing in crude
>parallel all over the world in the last ten thousand years or so along with
>the shift to settled dwelling, agriculture, private property, trade, and
>administration.  Our foraging ancestors, however, apparently did not need
>arithmetic.  Native North Americans were foragers much more recently than
>Europeans were, and the mathematical component of their languages will
>likely reflect this.
>
>Best,
>Rory
>
>  
>
Jonathan.

We Dakota (Bdewakantunwan) say "takuda sni" or "nothing" for zero.  I'm 
not sure about "taku sni."  I've never used it or heard it used like 
that.  That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  Have you thought about 
asking a Titunwan?

-Cantemaza de miye do.
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