The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

It's even more bizarre knowing that "ne" is often dropped in speech. I understand step the manuscript Voynich.

This made me wonder about the etymology of "ne...rien", nothing. This "rien" part apparently comes from Latin rem (nom. res), "thing". So ne...rien is basically the same as no-thing.

The story I was once told (now confirmed by Gemini) is that the Romans had an expression for "nothing", "nullam rem natam" = "no thing [ever] born".  When the Roman Empire collapsed, their nothing was looted by the barbarians and split among the breakaway kingdoms: the Italians kept the "nulla", the French got the "rien", and the Spanish ran away with the "nada".

All the best, --stolfi