The Zero Originated in Sumatra in SE Asia and The Andamanese Languages Originated in England

 

The Zero Originated in Sumatra in SE Asia

And The Andamanese Languages Originated in England

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I have earlier written articles showing the zeal of western "researchers" (and their Indian sepoys) in trying to locate the origin of all kinds of Indian things − even food items like idlis which are so intrinsic a part of the culinary culture of India − to foreign lands far to the east or west of India (or, as a compromise, to the rule of the Mughals in medieval India).

Here is more exciting research: according to Scientific American (July 28, 2022), the claim that India "gave zero to the world" (i.e. that the zero-based decimal system, without which world science would have been at a very primitive stage of development today, is India's gift to the world) is wrong: zero originated in Sumatra in Indonesia, and, as the writers (Frank Swetz, a professor emeritus at Pennsylvania University, and Shaharir bin Mohamad Zain, a professor emeritus at the national University of Malaysia) poignantly ask us at the end of their article, after tracing the origin of zero to Sumatra, "Could zero have been conceptually conceived of and utilized in an ancient and barely known Southeast Asian society? [….] Did the use of zero spread from this region westward into India and finally into Europe? Is the credibility of the term “Hindu-Arabic” numerals under serious threat? These questions require further investigation, but, as we see, the history of mathematics offers many mysteries that can puzzle and amaze its disciples."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-elusive-origin-of-zero?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-intl

 

For a more complete perspective on numbers and numerals and the zero-based decimal system, please see my article "India's Unique Place in the world of Numbers and Numerals":

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2018/08/indias-unique-place-in-world-of-numbers_38.html

https://www.academia.edu/40981413/Indias_Unique_Place_in_the_World_of_Numbers_and_Numerals

 

The researchers who try to trace the origin of Indian things to foreign lands cannot be accused of lacking in a sense of humor, albeit unwittingly so. While the article seriously tells us that zero originated in Sumatra and could have "spread from this region westward into India and finally into Europe", it tells us that the exact identity of the place and time where this apparently earliest discovery of the zero is located is "a dominant but previously unknown Old Malay empire in Southeast Asia, one that predated the Khmers. Named Sriwijaya, it was ruled by a maharaja, centered on the island of Sumatra in what is now Indonesia, and flourished in the period C.E. 650 to 1377. Sriwijaya was a major trading and maritime power controlling the sea lanes from Madagascar, across the Indian ocean, the Straits of Malacca, the whole of the South China Sea and on to the islands of the Philippines. Sriwijaya was also an early center of Buddhist teaching and proselytizing." Is the article also telling us that Buddhism, and the Sanskrit language to which the words "Sri" and "wijaya" belong, also originated in Sumatra and "spread from this region westward into India"?

This brought another truth to my realization: "the history of linguistics offers many mysteries that can puzzle and amaze its disciples." People wrongly believe that the Andamanese languages are languages of the Andaman islands in India. But they are wrong. The very first recorded "evidence" of the Andamanese languages is in books published by English scholars in England and Europe (e.g. Alexander John Ellis) in the nineteenth century: there is no written record available of these languages anywhere else before that! Unbelievable but true: the Andamanese languages originated in England and then spread from England eastward into the Andaman islands!