Mu (negative)

Mu
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	無
Simplified Chinese	无
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin wú Yue: Cantonese Jyutping mou2 Southern Min Hokkien POJ bô
Korean name
Hangul	무
Hanja	無
Transcriptions Revised Romanization mu
Japanese name
Kanji	無
Hiragana	む
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn mu

Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	wú
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	mou2
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	bô

Transcriptions
Revised Romanization	mu

Transcriptions
Revised Hepburn	mu

The Japanese and Korean term mu (Japanese: 無; Korean: 무) or Chinese wú (traditional Chinese: 無; simplified Chinese: 无) meaning "not have; without" is a key word in Buddhism, especially Zen traditions.

The Chinese word wú 無 "not; nothing" was borrowed by East Asian languages, particularly the Sino-Xenic "CJKV" languages of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

The Standard Chinese pronunciation wú historically derives from (c. 7th century CE) Middle Chinese mju, (c. 3rd century CE) Late Han Chinese muɑ, and reconstructed (c. 6th century BCE) Old Chinese *ma.

Other varieties of Chinese have differing pronunciations of Chinese: 無. Compare Cantonese mou4 or mou; and Southern Min IPA: [bo˧˥] (Quanzhou) and IPA: [bə˧˥] (Zhangzhou).

The common Chinese word wú 無 was adopted in the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese vocabularies. The Japanese kanji 無 has on'yomi readings of mu or bu, and a kun'yomi (Japanese reading) of na. The Korean hanja 無 is read mu (in Revised, McCune–Reischauer, and Yale romanization systems). The Vietnamese Hán-Việt pronunciation is vô or mô.

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