To be fair, zero is a complicated number

  • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    According to wiktionary, it means to wither and fall, in some contexts it’s used to refer to rain or tears.

    It also means bottom(gay).

    • randint
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      01 year ago

      一 (one) also means top (in gay contexts). It’s because 0 looks like a hole and 1 looks like a penis.

        • nantsuu
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          01 year ago

          We do know why, it’s because death 死 and four 四 have the same pronunciation sǐ in Chinese (and shi in Japanese).

            • @chayleaf@lemmy.ml
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              01 year ago

              homophones are common in Chinese and Japanese because there’s only so many potential readings of a hieroglyph, but each one has a different meaning

              • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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                01 year ago

                Sure, but they’re often different enough to to be obvious in context, or similar enough to have a shared etymology.

                Tones came later in Chinese, so when you have 2 homophones with similar meaning and different tones, they’re usually from words that had 2 suffixes, which were later dropped, but the tone of first part remained, 买 and 卖 didn’t end up with the same word by coincidence.