• VeryFrugal@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    1 = 壹 2 = 貳 3 = 參 4 = 肆 5 = 伍

    These exist as well.

    They’re used in places where numbers should NOT be forged(i.e. bank documents…)

    This is how they got their numeric meanings btw.

  • blx@piefed.zip
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    2 months ago

    Sure, when you mean “zero” it may look a bit excessive. But it’s quite adequate if you want to express “Void, the Dark Realm of Nothingness and End of All Things”.

    ps: Glory to ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ.

  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Yeah líng 零 is pretty annoying as a learner of the language.

    The top character is yŭ 雨 which means rain. Confusingly, this is the semantic component - the part that contains the meaning of the character. Explained below.

    The bottom character líng 令 means order/command as a noun and verb. This doesn’t add meaning, it is the phonetic component: basically a pronunciation cue.

    It originally meant “light rain”/“falling in drops, like rain”, actually. It began being used to mean “fragments” or “leftover part”, then as “remainder” in the mathematical sense. Then, eventually, to mean 0. Another form of líng is 霝 which means raindrops. It has 3 kŏu 口 (“mouth”) characters on the bottom to visually represent drops.

    So, like a lot of Chinese characters, it really only makes sense when you understand the etymology - and even then it’s kind of a stretch

    • FosterMolasses@leminal.space
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      2 months ago

      The fact that such intricate characters can even be displayed in such tiny fonts is nothing short of obscene lol, I wonder if chinese phones all have that Assistive / Readability Mode where the text is enlarged and high contrast by default, because I can’t imagine reading texts like that haha

      • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 months ago

        As someone who’s learned Japanese a bunch: once you’re very familiar with the symbols, you don’t look at every little line to determine what character it is, just the general shape. The characters are built by combining a discrete and smaller set of “drawings” (called radicals). So the space of possible characters is limited to those combinations. On top of that, not every legal combination actually exists. You won’t suddenly run into 鬱, but with a different radical in the bottom left, unless you’re playing a trivia game of “spot the mistake” (which can even be difficult for native speakers, just in the same way it can be difficult for native English speakers to spell some words they’d have no trouble reading.)

        I would wager some misplaced lines wouldn’t hurt readabiliity much in the same way we, in English aren’t usually struggling to read a sentence even if some of the letters are swapped/missing or a “the” is duplicated, etc. I’m sure you’ve seen examples of that before in English (or your own native language if it isn’t English).

        Of course in some instances, even a tiny difference can change the meaning of a sentence entirely. This is also true both in English and logographic languages. Luckily our brains do a lot of subconscious work here too and figure out where special attention is and isn’t needed by using context and knowledge about the writing system.

        (Small caveat: of course, especially in languages, there are always exceptions to every rule. And also the brain can be tricked, intentionally or not, in a variety of ways.)

  • kshade@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The concept of zero is scary, so it’s a wizard shooting lightning from all orifices. Makes sense.

    • Scrollone@feddit.it
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      2 months ago

      I mean… in English we also use different words, such as “pair” and “dozen”, for some specific numbers.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        But those are just words for “a group of a special size”

        Some eastern languages have totally different counting words depending on WHAT you’re counting. One set of number-words for flat things, another set for long things, another set for printed/bound things, another set for things with handles…

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Wait. I’ve played a lot of Fatal Frame, and they only signify the Zero Lens by its kanji, and it’s not that square shape. So now I’m confused…

      Maybe its ghost folklore origins put it more on the Chinese side?

      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That’s because 四 is 4

        In Japanese they also use 零 (rei) for zero. Or 〇 (maru) or ゼロ (zero)

      • AeronMelon@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Chinese characters are seen in Japanese media as stylistic choice, yes.

        The ones I typed are proper Japanese Kanji, which are derived and very simplified forms of Chinese characters. Even more so than Simplified Chinese.

        • renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          kanji are not a stylistic choice, but an integral part of the writing system

          also I think you mean the syllabaries (hiragana, katakana) are ultimately derived from chinese characters, japanese kanji are largely the same as chinese hanzi

          • AeronMelon@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            You misunderstood me because that’s not what I was saying.

            If there are Chinese characters in a Japanese game, they’re there for the visual appeal of them… unless they’re trying to actually teach Chinese, which I doubt the Fatal Frame series (horror) is doing.

              • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                I think they mean Ateji/当て字, when they’re used phonetically just to represent something as foreign or for style. Like how sushi is 寿司, but the characters have nothing to do with sushi other than the pronunciation.

                Of course, these are the exception. Kanji is integral to japanese writing and it’s a pain in the ass without them.

              • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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                2 months ago

                I wonder when kanji stop being Chinese characters in the same way that souvenir used by someone speaking English isn’t using a French word. Like characters with different variations in Japanese technically aren’t used (and weren’t ever used) in China, like 誤 vs 誤 (prob won’t show up right with the font on here but the Japanese component on the bottom right uses 六 without the top dot and Chinese uses 大). The kana were all derived from kanji as well, so could those be “chinese” characters? The etymology is obviously Chinese in the same way souvenir is French, but what does that really mean?

                Dunno, maybe it’s mostly semantics, especially when trying to talk about it in English

                • renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zone
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                  2 months ago

                  to me, “Chinese characters” means a certain writing system that is used by several languages (and not just Japanese and Mandarin, but also Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese etc.), but doesn’t inherently belong to any one of them. So, in my opinion, Japanese variants or 国字 are totally valid Chinese characters.

                  whether kana are also Chinese characters is a very interesting question. I think the main thing that makes them distinct is the purpose they serve, as they no longer convey any meaning by themselves but are instead used to write language phonetically. but I wouldn’t be so sure when it comes to 万葉がな. although manyogana was used the same way as modern kana it retained the shape of chinese characters. so maybe it’s the combination of both the evolved shape + different purpose that makes kana distinct from kanji?

        • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          A) Kanji are Chinese characters.

          B) Both languages simplified their characters, but Chinese was actually more aggressive in simplifying than Japanese, not the other way around.

          For example, look at the character for turtle:

          Traditional Chinese: 龜
          Simplified Chinese: 龟
          Japanese: 亀

    • Nutomic@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      In Korean it’s not so bad: 한, 둘, 셋, 넷. Or 일, 이, 삼, 사. Yes there are two different types of numbers…

      • nonfuinoncuro@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        the latter set is just the same chinese characters spelled out phonetically

        i feel like most people nowadays are getting lazy and just using the chinese numbers more and more instead of learning a new word for each new ten (twenty thirty forty etc)

        • Nutomic@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Thats good to hear, I made a lot of mistakes of using the wrong numbers for times or dates.

          • nonfuinoncuro@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            unfortunately hours (not minutes) ages and number of days/months (not years) are still korean numbers not chinese

            but i guess you can always just say the year of birth and spell out the date instead both of which would be chinese… haha languages are weird

  • FosterMolasses@leminal.space
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    2 months ago

    Lmao, I just picked up learning Kanji again after like 3 years (never had time in grad school)

    It is rough. But fierce repetition helps a lot. I can see the characters for “read a book” whenever I close my eyelids now hahaha

    Once something turns into muscle memory you don’t forget.

  • renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    零 isn’t too bad as far as chinese characters are concerned. you should see the character for depression. or the biang biang noodles character, although that one is kind of a meme

    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I’m partial to the Japanese-invented 𱁬

      Here’s in image in case it doesn’t show up

      Though it’s pretty simple once you see it’s just 2 kanji repeated 3 times. There’s also a good one that is 4 龍 in a 2 by 2 grid, meaning “verbose” (haha)

  • JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Three pigs

    Two pigs

    One pig

    Zero pig ? Or zero pigs?

    Honest question. Do we pluralize nouns of zero count? Or should they be singular?

    • AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      It’s plural, but not because there are many pigs.

      “How many pigs are there?” And answering with “There are no pigs” use the noun “pigs” in the same way. They are referring to the “pig” category or kind. When answering knowing the actual count, it’s a specific number or token.

        • AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          But they are asking with the number zero specifically. “There is zero pig” is not how we speak.

            • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              It’s because English is three or four languages all smashed together, usually by force.

            • AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              If you insist on “is” then “zero” doesn’t work. But if you use “are” the sentence, “There are zero pigs” is totally cromulant. That’s because “pigs” in that sentence is addressing the category.

      • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        “How many pigs are there?” And answering with “There are no pigs” use the noun “pigs” in the same way. They are referring to the “pig” category or kind. When answering knowing the actual count, it’s a specific number or token.

        There are one pigs

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        And also it’s not just zero, plural is for literally anything other than (positive) one: 2.3 pigs, -1 pigs, 0.2 pigs, etc.

    • 8oow3291d@feddit.dk
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      2 months ago

      In the history of mathematics, -1 was understood waaaay before 0.

      For the Greeks, doing 1-1 would be invalid, something close to dividing by zero for us.

      • FishFace@piefed.social
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        2 months ago

        Fun fact, for the greeks, 1 is not a number either - they said the natural numbers started at 2 and unity is something else. This is because, they said, all numbers represent pluralities.

            • FishFace@piefed.social
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              2 months ago

              We know the limit of a/x as x --> 0 if a ≠ 0.

              The limit is different if a = 0.

              The limit of the division function under certain conditions is not the same as division - division has a discontinuity at 0 which is expressing the same thing.

              Defining division by zero only works if you don’t care to preserve the field axioms, which is often inconvenient and so not done. The Riemann sphere is not a field, and fairly niche in the context of mere division, so I stand by my accusation of this being misleading.

              The policy of not defining division by zero to preserve the cancellation law is the most sensible default.

    • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      I saw a video years ago where somebody was talking (with a translator) to a tribe, I forget where. He asked how do they count. They would point with one hand to the other hand. Once they’ve got to five they start pointing to other parts of the arm moving upwards. He then asked what if you need to count higher. They looked confused, why would they need to count higher.

      For them they could exist without needing to count beyond teens.

      • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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        2 months ago

        I’m not sure how accurate that is, calenders are pretty important for being able to survive, and surely they need to figure “do we have enough food to last the rest of this season”.

        Maybe they have different math for that or there was an issue with translation.

        • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk
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          2 months ago

          These dudes lived in the tropics and lived off the fat of the land. They didn’t need to worry about seasons in the way more northern/southern hemisphere people do.

          Totally agree though. Maths, astrology, water sources, farming. All very important to sustain a civilisation.

    • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Mathematics for much of human history was discrete - it had to be connected to something tangible which you can see, touch or feel. Negative numbers first arose in China, subsequently the use numerical operations on negative numbers and the conceptualization and use of zero arose in India. Spiritual concepts within dharmic philosophies such as Buddhism helped lead to these ideas.