Re: orthographic borrowings

Jonathan Chang wrote:
> as _hommage_ to the Hindu mathematicians who
> came up with the earliest, workable theory of zero/null/void]
Earliest in the West, but the Maya had zero long before they did, even
incorporating it into their calendar - the days of their months were
numbered 0-19 (there were 18 20-day months plus 5 additional days), as
well as using it in the Long Count, which was the number of days, in the
form of a modified base-20 number [the second digit from the right was
only 0-17] since August 13 [or 11, scholars disagree], 3114 BC.  There's
evidence that they were using the Long Count as far back as 355 BC.  I
don't know how accurate that evidence is, but it was definitely in use
during the Maya Classical Period, around AD 200-900.

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