Lakota Concept of Zero

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006, Jonathan Holmes wrote:
> I was curious if anyone is aware of a Lakota term for the numeric
> concept of "0" (zero).

I tend to agree with Rory - 'zero' or at least the combination of the
concept of nothingness as a number and as a mechanism in place-notation
for writing numerals is a rather rare and recent thing.  My desk copy of
Webster's traces the familiar European forms to Mediaeval Latin zephirum,
from Arabic <s.>ifr 'empty, cipher, zero'.   The word cipher comes from
the same source.  Zero is one of those useful things that catches on like
wildfire when introduced, but doesn't go back very far anywhere.  It's not
a natural counting number and in quantifying it is not distinct from
'none' or 'nothing' until it is attached to place notation.  It doesn't
seem to be a number until it's a numeral, so to speak.

I wonder if zero arose from writing down the state of various sorts of
abacusses?  Abacusses are naturally associated with place notation, and
zero would be a way of writing down a "place" with nothing in it.  If you
use a series of hollows with counters in them, then zero might even be the
graphical representation of an empty hollow.  With beads on a wire it's a
bit harder to see a graphical connection.

There is a book on Native American Mathematics by Michael Closs (U of
Texas, 1996).