Comparison With Other Systems
There is no explicit symbol representing zero in unary as there is in other traditional bases, so unary is a bijective numeration system with a single digit. If there were a 'zero' symbol, unary would effectively be a binary system. In a true unary system there is no way to explicitly represent none of something, though simply making no marks represents it implicitly. Even in advanced tallying systems like Roman numerals there is no zero character, instead the Latin word for 'nothing,' nullae, is used.
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