I first started wondering about this question while watching movies subtitled in Thai, a language I cannot speak, understand, read or write. In rows of Thai characters numbers would be represented by Arabic numerals, instead of the Thai numerals that I know exist. Since, I have noticed Arabic numerals being used nigh-universally, no matter the local alphabet. Why is this? Why have Arabic numerals replaced local numerals while the Latin alphabet, part of the same cultural colossus, hasn’t replaced local alphabets?
Have you ever tried doing simple calculations, e.g. +, -, *, & / using Roman Numerals or Egyptian Hieroglyphics?
Arabic numerals are simply simpler.
Thai numerals, to use the example I’m familiar with, just use different symbols, the mechanics are identical to Arabic numerals.
And Arabic numerals isn’t a very good name. First they originated in India (I’m pretty sure). Europeans only got them through the Arabs. And the numerals used in Arabian today don’t look like what we call Arabic numerals except for 1 and 9. Most confusingly five looks like 0 and six looks like 7.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic.htm
scroll down a bit
The link doesn’t work, OldGuy, but luckily always carry a spare one with me:
The Arabs and Thais both got the numeral system from India.
Could we please try and stick to the original topic of the thread? If anyone wants to discuss where the Arabic/Indian/whatever you want to call them numerals came from and what they should be called, please open your own thread for that purpose.
Another point is that since the mechanics of the numerals work the same, it’s no great hurdle for the Thai to use Arabic numerals rather than Thai – it’s just a matter of using different, but exactly equivalent, characters. The Latin alphabet, though, is exceptionally ill-suited to the Thai language, while the Thai abugida, not surprisingly, suits it very well. For the Thai to switch to using Latin characters would be a monumental undertaking, and any system using Latin characters would be inelegant and kludgy, undoubtedly requiring many digraphs and obscure diacritics, so in the absence of any vital reason to change, it’s unlikely they’re going to.
But what’s the vital reason to change from Thai numerals to Arabic numerals?
Just a WAG, but it probably makes trade easier to use one numeric system rather than two or one that was specific to the country. I believe even “Western Arabic” i.e., U.S., European, etc…etc… numbers are well known to Middle Easterners.
Also because, save for a few systems, number systems (AFAIK) basically vary in symbols only. They operate on roughly the same principles. Even Latin numbers, where the subtraction system (IV instead of IIII) was invented LONG after Caesar’s time.
But, languages on the other hand, have symbols which carry with them a relatively unique sound to the language. Try and read Russian using English characters.
Zdravstvuyte. Pronounced in English phonetics, it’s pronounced as: “Zzdrahvstooeetee”
Howeve, in Russian, the pronounciation is:
“Zdravstvoytye”
A less obvious example:
Eto - That.
It would be pronounced “etoh.” However, in Russian, it’s “etah”
The point is: Sounds and letters don’t carry over languages well, and they’re most often forced by some occupying power. Numbers on the other hand, translate between symbols pretty well compared to languages.
Excuse me, but my reply is on topic. You claimed that Arabic numerals are “used nigh-universally, no matter the local alphabet.” I’m telling you that they are not so used by one of the most wide-spread other “local alphabets”. Given that we call them Arabic numerals I thought I should give at least a short explanation why.
Arabic numerals are used now by those who use the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets. I suspect the reason why Cyrillic and Greek numbers were probably replaced with Arabic numerals is they weren’t very well suited to arithmetic. Both systems used a system basically like this
A = 1, B = 2, … I = 9, J = 10, K = 20,…, R=90, S=100, T=200,…
Except they used the Cyrrilic or Greek alpahbets of course, and fortunately they had enough letters to go up through 900. (The Greeks used some old letters like digamma which were no longer used in words.) Numbers above 1000 were created by putting thousands symbol in front of the appropriate number. E.g., {thousands symbol}B indicated two thousand. So for example, the current year would be written as {thousands symbol}BF. Since there is no place notation, arithmetic is much harder to do.
use of arabic numbers is widespread in china. schoolkids learn arabic numbers long before characters. chinese characters are still widespread for numbers (although zero is usually arabic and ‘ling’ not used much any more)
actally chinese has two ways of writing numbers. a simple form that has single handsigns, and more complicated form for formal documents to prevent forgery. for example, one is a horizontal line & two is two horizontal lines but the complicated form is completely different.
Wiki Article on Chinese Numerals
There’s also a system of using the character 正 as hash marks the way westerners use the four-verticals-and-one-slash system.
One major factor has to be what can be termed a “shrinking world” and the sharing of information worldwide, especially in the sciences.
The adoption of “Arabic” numerals in at least some public contexts affords a nation many conveniences:
– the notation of airport arrivals and departures can be standardized worldwide
– astronomical and chronilogical information can be shared across national borders
– international financial transactions are facilitated
There are also many, many smaller contexts in which use of Arabic numbers makes sense. For example, a casino in a Thai resort (assuming there are casinos) would cater to their tourist clientele by having their roulette wheel, playing cards, betting areas, etc. adorned with Arabic numerals. Use of Thai numerals would discourage non-locals from spending their money there.
The use of Arabic numerals in countries like Thailand was never a one-time decision made by fiat from on high. Rather, it involved a combination of many decisions made by many parties with different motivations (exchange of information, modernization, “membership” in the “global community”, profit, etc.).
I think this hits the nail on the head, starting with the printing of currency.
As Old Guy said, Arabic numerals are by no means universal. I once knew a Persian woman; when she wrote numbers I definitely could not understand them. Caused quite a few chuckles sometimes – “Whoops, I wrote it in Persian”, she’d say.
Ed
There are actually two styles of Arabic numerals, but both are equally Arabic.
The “Western Arabic” numerals, as Robert Emmett correctly described them, are native to Northwest Africa, and they were used in Spain and Sicily too, when those countries were Muslim-ruled, before other Europeans got them. The first non-Muslim European to promote Arabic numerals for math instead of Roman was Leonardo Fibonacci at the beginning of the 13th century, after he was taught Arabic numerals while living as a Pisan commericial envoy in Algeria. He cited Syria, Egypt, and Sicily among the sources for his learning of mathematics.
al-Maghrib (Northwestern Africa in general, Morocco in particular), where the native Berber population is mixed with Arab, is the home of a distinct style of Arabic script called Maghribi. Several of the letters are formed with different shapes than those used in the more widespread Eastern Arabic scripts. Maghribi script was restricted in geographical extent to North and West Africa, and temporarily was used in Muslim Spain and Sicily. The numerals as used in Europe nowadays were introduced from the Maghrib, so that explains why we use this style of Arabic numerals. If you look at an Arabic book published in Morocco, you will see the familiar Western Arabic numerals, whereas from Libya on eastward the Eastern Arabic style is used, where the zero is just a dot.
suranyi, the Eastern Arabic style numerals are used in Iran too, but three of them are shaped variantly: the 4, 5, and 6. Also, Urdu script uses Eastern Arabic numerals, but the 4 and 7 use variant shapes, different from the Iranian style as well as from Arabic. In Iran, the Arabic numeral 5 looks like a heart — but upside-down.
[QUOTE=suranyi]
As Old Guy said, Arabic numerals are by no means universal. I once knew a Persian woman; when she wrote numbers I definitely could not understand them. Caused quite a few chuckles sometimes – “Whoops, I wrote it in Persian”, she’d say./QUOTE]
But she had no trouble writing Arabic numerals if she chose to, right?
Well, I know no Thai, but looking at the Wikipedia article, they (like the Romans) don’t seem to use the place system in the same way that arabic numerals do, which is a great advantage of arabic numerals (the thai sign for 11, according the the little chart, has four units, while the sign for 100 has three units).