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Rory M Larson wrote:
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<pre wrap="">I was curious if anyone is aware of a Lakota term for the numeric concept
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<pre wrap=""><!---->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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<pre wrap="">While I know of the Lakota terms such as...
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<pre wrap="">wanji'ni = none
takuni = nothing
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
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<pre wrap="">...is this the same as "0" (zero)?
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
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<pre wrap="">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
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Jonathan.<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
-Cantemaza de miye do.
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