"Zero"
Translation:零
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It can also be written as "〇", which is what you'll usually see in things like years.
Zero in Chinese looks like It looks like an old man meditating with wrinkles on forehead
Can someone explain the orogin of this hanzi? For zero you have rain on top and... what should be the implicit meaning ? :)
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Actually, the character "零" IS related to rain.
Originally, "零" means "drops of rain/drizzle" in old Chinese. Later this character was used as the verb "to fall down like rain". You can still see this usage in modern Chinese, albeit not very common and too flowery in conversation:
"凋零": "scatter about"
"涕零": "tears falling down"
Another derived meaning of this character is "tiny bits". as in "零钱" (change, dibs). Which is probably related with the modern usage "zero". However, it's more likely that "零" just had the same pronunciation as "zero" and thus people borrowed this character to write "zero".
You can think of it as someone medatating with their legs crossed and they habe a rinkeld face :-D
I remember ling as zero because ling looks like a sleeping man. And a sleeping man is ling-gering.
For any one who is curious to know, the unique symbol of zero represents a person in meditation. This meditation was taught by Gautama Buddha to his advanced monks,and it was called 'shunya' which means zero or nothingness. 'shunya' is originally a word from the Sanskrit language.
