Mysteries of vernacular: Zero - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel

词源揭秘：Zero——杰茜卡·奥列克和雷切尔·蒂尔

翻译人员: Yixiong Zhu 校对人员: Jenny Yang

Mysteries of vernacular:

词源揭秘：

Zero,

“Zero”，

a number that indicates an absence of units.

一个表示单位是没有的数字。

In order to understand the genesis of the word zero,

要想明白“zero”一词的起源，

we must begin with the very origins of counting.

我们必须从计数的起源开始。

The earliest known archaeological evidence of counting

有关计数最早的考古学证据

dates back approximately 37,000 years

出现在大约37000年前，

而那仅仅是一些有刻痕的骨头。

and is merely a series of notches in bone.

It wasn't until around 2500 B.C.

直到公元前2500年，

that the first written number system

第一个书面计数体系

began to take form in Mesopotamia,

才开始在美索不达美亚出现。

using the units one, ten, and sixty.

该体系使用数字1，10，和60。

Fast forward another three millennia

快进3000年，

to seventh century India

在7世纪印度，

where mathematicians used a single dot

数学家用一个点

来区分诸如

to distinguish between numbers

25，205，250等数字。

like 25, 205, and 250.

既作为占位符，又作为数字，

Employed as both a placeholder and a number,

this all-powerful dot eventually morphed

这个全能的点逐渐演变成为

into the symbol we know today.

我们今日所熟悉的数学符号。

The word zero comes from the Arabic safira,

“Zero”一次来源自阿拉伯语“safira”，

字面意思是指空无。

whose literal translation is empty.

传入意大利语后成了“zefiro”，

Passing through Italian as zefiro,

zero came into English in the seventeenth century.

它在17世纪又变成了英语的“zero”。

A second descendant of the Arabic root

第二词源也是源于阿拉伯语，

was adopted into English through old French

之后从古法语传入英语，

单词“cipher”。

as the word cipher.

本意与“zero”，都是指没有，

Originally sharing the meaning empty with zero,

cipher later came to describe a code,

“cipher”后来开始指代密码。

早期密码通常被用作

as early codes often used complicated substitutions

字母和数字间复杂的替换

between letters and numbers.

From this shared empty origin,

从这个共同的”空无“源头起，

zero continues to represent the number

”zero“一直被用来

that represents nothing.

代表“没有”这个数字。