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The word zero comes through the Arabic literal translation of the Sanskrit śūnya, meaning void or empty, into ṣifr (صفر) meaning empty or vacant. Through transliteration this became zephyr or zephyrus in Latin. The word zephyrus already meant "west wind" in Latin; the proper noun Zephyrus was the Roman god of the west wind (after the Greek god Zephyros). With its new use for the concept of zero, zephyr came to mean a light breeze-"an almost nothing."[1] The word zephyr survives with this meaning in English today. The Italian mathematician Fibonacci (c.1170-1250), who grew up in Arab North Africa and is credited with introducing the Hindu decimal system to Europe, used the term zephyrum. This became zefiro in Italian, which was contracted to zero in the Venetian dialect, giving the modern English word.
As the Hindu decimal zero and its new mathematics spread from the Arab world to Europe in the Middle Ages, words derived from sifr and zephyrus came to refer to calculation, as well as to privileged knowledge and secret codes. According to Ifrah, "in thirteenth-century Paris, a 'worthless fellow' was called a... cifre en algorisme, i.e., an 'arithmetical nothing.'"[1] (Algorithm is also a borrowing from the Arabic, in this case from the name of the 9th century mathematician al-Khwarizmi.) The Arabic root gave rise to the modern French chiffre, which means digit, figure, or number; chiffrer, to calculate or compute; and chiffré, encrypted; as well as to the English word cipher. Today, the word in Arabic is still sifr, and cognates of sifr are common throughout the languages of Europe. A few additional examples follow.
As the Hindu decimal zero and its new mathematics spread from the Arab world to Europe in the Middle Ages, words derived from sifr and zephyrus came to refer to calculation, as well as to privileged knowledge and secret codes. According to Ifrah, "in thirteenth-century Paris, a 'worthless fellow' was called a... cifre en algorisme, i.e., an 'arithmetical nothing.'"[1] (Algorithm is also a borrowing from the Arabic, in this case from the name of the 9th century mathematician al-Khwarizmi.) The Arabic root gave rise to the modern French chiffre, which means digit, figure, or number; chiffrer, to calculate or compute; and chiffré, encrypted; as well as to the English word cipher. Today, the word in Arabic is still sifr, and cognates of sifr are common throughout the languages of Europe. A few additional examples follow.