Talk:Arabic numerals
From Academic Kids
Latest talk goes at the bottom of this page
The Arabic numerals (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) are used worldwide.
They were popularized by the arabs, but were originally used by the early phonecian traders.
The phonecian numerals represented the count of angles in each of their symbols. For example, 0 has no angle; 1 has one angle, 2 has two angles, 3 has three angles etc.
Go to http://www.orthohelp.com/number.htm to see what these symbols look like.
See also: Babylonian numerals, Mayan numerals, Roman numerals, Hebrew numerals, Chinese numerals
I don't know if this is real or not, but I've read the same in other sources. --Pinkunicorn
The "number of angles" theory is old, and proven wrong. For one thing, the modern numerals are derived from a set of symbols that look quite different in places -- and they don't follow the angle rule. So much for that.
The Phoenician comment is completely out to lunch. There's no doubt these days that they were invented in India, brought into Arabic society, and that then the variety of them used in North Africa were picked up by Italians, from where they spread into the rest of Europe.
- More likely by the Spanish? mfc
If no-one else fixes this one up I'll have a crack at it myself when I get a chance. I've a couple of scholarly works on the history of Arabic numerals in the bookshelves somewhere. -- PaulDrye
Truth is simple and consistent. It is my belief in life. Just like E=mc2. When I found the angle counts theory on the web, it was so simple and consistent that I didn't doubt its validity. I was really interested to know how to disprove it. I know there were many scholarly papers on the topic, but who can tell if those scholars even tried to fit this theory into the other findings.
You prove it wrong by showing that the original numbers from which the modern numerals evolved don't follow the angle rule. The original Brahmi numbers don't look a heck of a lot like the modern ones, and only started looking like they do now after many, many regional variations as they migrated west.
People make the mistake of thinking that the modern numerals were imported wholesale from India, which isn't correct. The concept of zero and the positional system were, but the symbols themselves changed over time. The last number to start looking like itself ("5") started looking like that only after it reached Europe! If you're reading a medieval or early renaissance document and you see what looks like an upside-down lower-case letter "h" -- like an open-topped "4" with a round cross-stroke instead of a straight one -- you've got yourself a "5". The Eastern Arabic symbol for "8" looks just like the symbol Western Europeans use for "7".
Another proof is that at least one symbol ("2") has a simpler explanation. In the Brahmi symbol set it looked like "=". Two cross-bars, unattached, which has an obvious origin for meaning "2" --hint: "1" was written as "-". There are then examples of other scripts derived from the Brahmi one, Marathi for example, where all that has happened is that the writer didn't lift his pen between writing the first crossbar and the second one. "=" turns into "z" and from there it's a short jump to "2".
There are many, many numbering systems -- dozens -- that evolved from the Brahmi system, and there are enough remaining documents that you can trace most of the systems through time and space as the characters change shape. The angle theory implies that they sprang from the forehead of some mathematician like Athena out of Zeus, and have never changed since. That's clearly not the case.
(Can you tell that I found my references?) --PaulDrye
The illustrations at http://www.orthohelp.com/number.htm were quite convincing. All the counts do match the respective symbols. But those symbols may be just made up to fit the theory. Was phonecian real? How do their numerals look like?
The Phoenicians were the people who invented the alphabet, in Lebanon around 17-1500 BC. They didn't use anything resembling Hindu-Arabic numerals, though.
The Phoenecians actually started using numerals quite late. In all their early inscriptions (i.e., everything before about 800 BC) they were in the habit of writing the numbers out in words: "Fifty six", not "56".
When they did start using numerals, they borrowed the system used by a number of other peoples in the area. The units are very basic: just vertical hash marks. Three lines for "3": |||. Seven lines for "7", like |||||||. Ten was represented by a horizontal line: "-". "=" for 20, and so on. Interestingly, when the "don't bother picking up the pen" thing kicked in here, the symbol for "20" started to look like a "2" and "30" started to look like a "3", but that's just because similar basic symbols were being used for 2 and 3 in Brahmi. Once you get past "4" and "40", there's no similarity between the signs.
It's important to note that the Phoenicians had symbols for 10, 20, 30.... It was not a positional system. It was basically just Roman numerals with different squiggles. You had a special symbol for twenty instead of writing 2-tens 0-ones like we do. This is just like hundreds of other number systems, and not at all like the one the Indians invented. --PaulDrye
One of the Chinese numerals system is positional. Yet, the Hangzhou numerals contain three special symbols for 10, 20, 30 only for shorthand. No shorthand beyond 30 though. So the use of symbols for 10, 20 etc. can coexist with a positional system. I love wiki wiki, I am learning alot through this type of exchange. Thanks guys!
I cannot see the Tamil numerals even in Clearlyu. They come out as squares with question marks. Then there are the Thai numerals, which are different, and the Gujarati numerals, which are mostly like the Devanagari ones except that Guji 9 looks more like Guji L than Nagari 9. Can someone make a graphic chart? -phma
- I switched the chart from vertical to horizontal (for more efficient space usage) and made it an image for the font-impaired. Source for the table is in image:Euro-Arab-Indic-numerals.png; feel free to add to it and re-upload an updated version with additional scripts etc. --Brion VIBBER
I removed the chart below. First of all, it's way to self-serving, havinf names and URL on the image itself, which really isn't appropriate here. Second, it appears to be original research, not established scholarship. There's already an externmal link to an article that explains the theory, and I think that's plenty. --LDC
- I removed the image as it is in line for deletion. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 02:06, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, does anybody know why all the symbols display correctly in my browser except the zero in Tamil, which is a question mark? (Unless the symbol in Tamil really is a question mark...) Tokerboy
- It's actually an image. See Image:Euro-Arab-Indic-numerals.png for an explanation. --Camembert
- aah, thanks. Tokerboy
I edited the following text from the "Arabic numerals" page
- In Japan, where the western numerals and alphabet are widely used, the arabic numerals are known as "romanji". Confusingly enough, this translates roughly as "Roman numerals" which conventionally has another meaning altogether.
See "romaji"; it is "roman characters" (cf. "kanji", or "chinese characters").
---mikkalai
I don't think the sentences '"The leftward most digit of a number has the greatest value; this is the most logical arrangement if the number is read from right to left, which is how Arabic is read. However, for those accustomed to reading from left to right, it is less than ideal."' are correct.
Having the most valuable digit on the left means you write that one (the most important first). And, in fact, people writing in Arabic start writing from the right (of course) but when they get to a number then guess how long it will be, leave a gap, then write the number from left to right... Mfc
I removed the following sentence from the article:
- Early varieties of West Arabic numerals often use the symbol "4" to represent the number five with some other symbol to represent five (often a loop), or had the glyph of the four digit rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
It doesn't make sense as it stands. It would make sense if the second "five" were replaced with a "four", but that doesn't mean that it would be true. AxelBoldt 12:22, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
In the article it is mentioned:
- Theorists believe that this is because it becomes difficult to instantaniously count objects past three.
Which theorists? Is there a cite? Sounds like a "common sense fact" that may not actually be a fact. 01:26, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Lots of interested parties here .. so let's introduce ourselves.
- I'm Quota (quota) and my interest is in Wikipedia and the topic of numerals, especially the decimal ones. This article is a keystone of arithmetic, these days, across the world. I want to make the article be the place people go to learn about the topic.
- next [please edit/add here...]
We seem to have leap-frog revert problems on this page. The best way to avoid these is to splipt the page into sections (history, etc.) which can then be worked on independently. please don't revert on this page; it will never converge if we do! quota 16:25, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
- a) you tried to islamize or arabize this page by changing ethnicities of individuals in articles, b)you outright deleted mentions of key authors c) you entered false information confusing the works of al-kindi with the the works of Al-Khwarizmi d) you conveniently move the references to Hindu-numerals out of sight at the end of the article , no doubt scheduled for a quiet future deletion in the future. e) you obviously do not know your facts on this topic. --Weder4 18:47, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
- No! I did not make any of those changes. All I did was correct grammar and mis-spellings, and set up a 'History' section. There are many people editing this article. Please check the history of editing.
If others have made bad edits, please correct them .. one at a time -- but reverting over multiple edits just messes up everyone, and makes no progress.
Thanks -- quota
| Contents |
reorganization of the page
The page had historical information spread all over the article which was really confusing for the reader . Thus I added 2 groups "history" and "description" and replaced the word glyph with the word symbol to make the page more reader friendly. --68.130.206.24 19:43, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Replay
@Weder4, Again, you failed to lay forward some evidence!!
The "Arabic Numbers" are of Indian Origin, how can I Islamize or Arabize that??!!
My Reference is School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences University of St Andrews - http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Arabic_numerals.html And the Article was written by J J O'Connor and E F Robertson.
As you see, it was not written by an Arab or a Muslim!!!
Recent editors messing up this page
re: Stevertigo changes: Why is an already clear and concise intro paragraph being changed to a confusing mess and irrelevant information added? And his revised Indu numeral gif does not even format properly and leaves a huge blank section in the intro area.
Not much progress that I can see
I last looked at this page a month or so ago -- it was something of a mess then, and still is. But I see from the history that several (two? ten?) people seem to be working at cross purposes. As such, the result is not very helpful to readers. There are also several point-of-view bits that really are not in the spirit of Wikipedia. Obviously when there are stongly-held views, it's hard to edit those areas so, people, why not just leave them be for a while?
In the meantime, can we at least try and edit-in a factual introduction so that people coming here looking for information will learn what is meant by 'arabic numerals'. That's probably a synopsis of the description, with a pointer to the history. Any volunteers to write? If not, I'll have a go (in a couple of weeks). mfc 16:39, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)
- I'd love to help, but there are people here (person?) who seem to have no interest working as a team with the rest of the world (see my comments and attempts above). It's a shame; Wikipedia is such a good idea. So count me out, though I'll still try and correct bad English (would you believe someone thinks numerals were 'invented'?). Good luck ... quota
See Also
Removed "Arabic Language" link which is totally out of place.
What we know as Arabic numerals
Yuber, "we know" is improper usage; "we" is undefined, as other editors have pointed out, and is entirely too colloquial. As well, one cannot assume that the reader knows this kind of thing. Instead, the phrase "what is know in English" is neutral and accurate; I'm surprised you'd revert two different editors who fix this. Jayjg (talk) 00:10, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
