Sunlit Water

May 14, 2007

I Feel So Useful

Filed under: Language — by teofilo @ 12:47 am

Navajo actually has two words for “zero”: adin (literally “nothing”) for the concept and nazbas (literally “circular”) for the symbol.

4 Comments »

  1. Someone’s been reading xkcd

    Comment by Glenn — May 14, 2007 @ 10:14 am |Reply

  2. As is clear from the link in the post.

    Comment by teofilo — May 14, 2007 @ 1:37 pm |Reply

  3. so wait, xkcd just made those up?

    Comment by Ile — June 10, 2007 @ 4:07 am |Reply

  4. No, they’re real, but as the hover text on the cartoon explains, whatever dictionary he was using didn’t have an entry for “zero” so he used the word for “neutral” instead.

    Comment by teofilo — June 10, 2007 @ 12:33 pm |Reply


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