אפס (éfes) — zero

Etymology

The word אפס is ancient biblical Hebrew meaning "nothing" or "naught." For most of Jewish history, however, there was no Hebrew word specifically for the numeral zero, because the number systems used in the biblical period — Egyptian-Phoenician-Aramaic positional notation and later the Greek-derived gematria — had no zero digit.

The zero digit entered the world via the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who described the "Indian system" of numerals in his Baghdad treatise of c. 820 CE. He called zero سِفر (sifr), meaning "empty," a loan-translation of the Sanskrit śūnya. This Arabic word traveled westward: sifr → Latin cifra → French cifre → German Ziffer, and from German the Hebrew Language Committee coined סִפְרָה (digit) in 1912. When the Hindu-Arabic numeral system reached Europe via Spain in the 12th century, Abraham Ibn Ezra — wandering European cities after fleeing Spain — wrote the first Hebrew book presenting these numerals, Sefer HaMispar (c. 1150). He called zero גַּלְגַּל ("wheel"), explaining it is "like a wheel of straw before the wind." The term did not gain traction.

For centuries afterward, Hebrew writers on mathematics simply used the German Null (itself from Italian nulla). It was Rabbi David Friesenhausen who, in his 1796 Sefer Khlil HaHeshbon (Berlin), first explicitly called the digit zero "אפס." Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev confirmed it as the Hebrew equivalent of Null in his 1808 German-Hebrew dictionary. The word was then cemented by Chaim Zelig Slonimski's 1834 arithmetic textbook Sefer Musdei Chokhmah (Vilna), which became the standard text in the first Hebrew schools in Palestine and Eastern Europe.

Key Quotes

"ישים כדמות גלגל o בראשונה להורות כי אין במעלה הראשונה מספר... וזה הגלגל o וטעמו כגלגל כקש לפני רוח" — Abraham Ibn Ezra, Sefer HaMispar, c. 1150

"יוצג הציון אפס (נול) מעבר ההוא אשר נעתקו ממנו כל שעוריו" — David Friesenhausen, Sefer Khlil HaHeshbon, Berlin, 1796

Timeline

• c. 820: Al-Khwarizmi names the zero digit سِفر (sifr) in Baghdad
• c. 1150: Abraham Ibn Ezra coins גַּלְגַּל for zero in Sefer HaMispar; term does not catch on
• 1145: Robert of Chester translates al-Khwarizmi into Latin; system spreads to Europe
• 1649: Rabbi Eshaeil Yehuda Ma-Tov uses "אפס ואין" descriptively for zero, not as a fixed name
• 1758: Sefer Melekhet Machshevet uses German Null; no known Hebrew word mentioned
• 1796: Rabbi David Friesenhausen uses אפס as explicit name for the zero digit
• 1808: Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev establishes אפס as the Hebrew equivalent of Null in his dictionary
• 1834: Chaim Zelig Slonimski uses אפס in his arithmetic textbook, cementing the word in Hebrew education
• 1912: Hebrew Language Committee coins סִפְרָה from the same Arabic root sifr

Related Words

• סִפְרָה — digit (from Arabic sifr, same etymological chain as zero); coined 1912
• אַלְגֶּבְּרָה — algebra (from al-Khwarizmi's treatise title)
• אַלְגּוֹרִיתְם — algorithm (from al-Khwarizmi's name/city of origin)
• גַּלְגַּל — Ibn Ezra's rejected coinage for zero