A couple of days ago, Jeopardy had a question to the effect of what is the adjectival description of the alphabet with the second largest number of users and the numerical notation with the largest number of users. The answer was “Arabic”. I got there circuitously through the wrong answer of “Roman”. Be that as it may, it raised a series of follow-up questions in my mind.
It appears that arabic numbers are now widely used in the cultures that use ideographic alphabets in Asia. How long has that been the case? Did arabic notation in China (or Japan) predate “western” contact? Was there an earlier system? Base 10? Positional, using zero? Is it still in use for particular (ceremonial?) purposes?
The traditional way for Chinese numerals is to write them as you’d read them aloud. So 134 is written 百三十四 (hundred, three, ten, four), similar to reading it out as “one hundred thirty-four” in English. I don’t know about China, but this way of writing is still commonly used alongside western numerals in Japan. Chinese numerals are also used positionally (in which case the above would be 一三四) but that’s not particularly common outside of page numbers.
This is referenced in the link above, but the Suzhou Numerals were used in many places where Arabic numerals are normally used today. As mentioned in the article, they were not uncommon in Hong Kong even up to the 80s.
When I was learning Chinese we learned the traditional numeral system that cckerberos described above. Having never been to China, I don’t know how often it’s still used. Arabic numerals are used for anything official, and anything that has to do with money or mathematics.
Here in Southwest China, I don’t think I’ve ever really ran into Suzhou numbers. In my experience, Arabic numerals are most common, but Chinese numbers will be used in certain situations, such as in complete sentences, formal documents, or when giving dates in a more formal context. Prices and other situations where you just have a number sitting there alone are more likely to be Arabic.
Yes, Suzhou numbers have pretty much completely died out by now, but this was something that happened somewhat recently (at least at some part of the Chinese speaking world). I was trying to answer the part of the OP about whether there was another system before Arabic numerals were introduced from the west, and when did the transition occur. I can certainly remember running into them in HK back in the 80s.