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For the number zero, `[零]{れい}` is a Chinese origin word that is pretty much
familiarized in Japanese. Nevertheless, it seems more popular to use the
Western origin word `ゼロ`, which probably appeared later. Why is that? They are
both two morae, and I don't see any phonological reason.
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2011-12-22T00:23:24.760
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2014-09-08T10:05:37.547
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word-choice
Why is "ゼロ" more popular than "れい"?
ゼロ has almost 0% ambiguity (when spoken) and, only requiring katakana, is much
easier to write.
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2011-12-22T04:04:38.810
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2011-12-22T04:04:38.810
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I've heard れい still being used when pronouncing phone numbers. But other than
phone numbers (and maybe sports scores,) ゼロ is generally easier for listeners
to pick up
[because](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q108328520)
it has more of a 濁音{だくおん} (voiced sound.)

More analysis for this can be found on [this
page,](http://www.cozymax.org/study/zero050615.htm) as well.
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2012-02-25T23:31:19.307
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Not sure whether this is relevant, but I have also heard the null-valued
numeral written as 〇 and pronounced まる, but I don't know much about this.
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2017-05-17T22:19:52.403
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れい is also used when saying numbers with a decimal point that begin with a
zero.

> 0.5

reads phonetically as

> れい てん ご
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2017-05-17T22:24:51.027
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Zero means nothing, but 零 means a quite bit. So 0.5,零細企業 so on. It is said
Japanese didn't have a word which means nothing. Well also most Japanese don't
know this fact, though.
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2017-05-19T14:44:45.673
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Like Takahiro Waki [hinted
at](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/4047/why-
is-%e3%82%bc%e3%83%ad-more-popular-than-%e3%82%8c%e3%81%84/47580#47580) in
another answer, 零 originally didn't mean the numeral "zero", nor the idea of
"none, empty"; it meant "a little, paltry, small, fraction" (as in 零細{れいさい} =
"insignificant", or in Chinese 六十有零 = "a little over sixty"). Up until well
into the Edo period, the word doesn't appear as a numeral in Japanese-language
texts (it did appear in mathematical treatises of the 和算{わさん} tradition, but
these were written in Chinese and of limited influence). In things like
merchant's ledgers, nothingness was represented by a blank. In other words,
Japan was a culture without a numeral zero, just like the West before it was
introduced from the Hindo-Arabic tradition (compare with the Roman numerals).

零 as a numeral zero only spread into general usage quite late, possibly as
late as Meiji. So it didn't have that much of a time advantage over the
introduction of the word _zero_ , which might have facilitated their
coexistence (especially since Japanese was already used to multiple numerals
for each number).

Source: Yōsuke Hashimoto, _Nihongo no Nazo wo toku_.
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2017-05-20T10:17:14.920
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