ther our
score mark [score mark], read "four in the hole," could trace its pedigree
to the same sources. O'Creat[203] (c. 1130), in a letter to his teacher,
Adelhard of Bath, uses [Greek: t] for zero, being an abbreviation for the
word _teca_ which we shall see was one of the names used for zero, although
it could quite as well be from [Greek: tziphra]. More rarely O'Creat uses
[circle with bar], applying the name _cyfra_ to both forms. Frater
Sigsboto[204] (c. 1150) uses the same symbol. Other peculiar forms are
noted by Heiberg[205] as being in use among the Byzantine Greeks in the
fifteenth century. It is evident from the text that some of these writers
did not understand the import of the new system.[206]

Although the dot was used at first in India, as noted above, the small
circle later replaced it and continues in use to this day. The Arabs,
however, did not adopt the {56} circle, since it bore some resemblance to
the letter which expressed the number five in the alphabet system.[207] The
earliest Arabic zero known is the dot, used in a manuscript of 873
A.D.[208] Sometimes both the dot and the circle are used in the same work,
having the same meaning, which is the case in an Arabic MS., an abridged
arithmetic of Jamshid,[209] 982 A.H. (1575 A.D.). As given in this work the
numerals are [symbols]. The form for 5 varies, in some works becoming
[symbol] or [symbol]; [symbol] is found in Egypt and [symbol] appears in
some fonts of type. To-day the Arabs use the 0 only when, under European
influence, they adopt the ordinary system. Among the Chinese the first
definite trace of zero is in the work of Tsin[210] of 1247 A.D. The form is
the circular one of the Hindus, and undoubtedly was brought to China by
some traveler.

The name of this all-important symbol also demands some attention,
especially as we are even yet quite undecided as to what to call it. We
speak of it to-day as _zero, naught_, and even _cipher_; the telephone
operator often calls it _O_, and the illiterate or careless person calls it
_aught_. In view of all this uncertainty we may well inquire what it has
been called in the past.[211]

{57}

As already stated, the Hindus called it _['s][=u]nya_, "void."[212] This
passed over into the Arabic as _a[s.]-[s.]ifr_ or _[s.]ifr_.[213] When
Leonard of Pisa (1202) wrote upon the Hindu numerals he spoke of this
character as _zephirum_.[214] Maximus Planudes (1330), writing under both
the Greek and the Arab