To be fair, zero is a complicated number

  • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months 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).

        • nantsuu@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          7 months 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
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              7 months 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
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                7 months 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.