Arabic numerals

Arabic numerals, also called Hindu-Arabic or Indo-Arabic numerals, are the ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, based on the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, the most common system for the symbolic representation of numbers in the world today. In this system, a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a single number, using the position of the digit in the sequence to interpret its value. The symbol for zero is the key for the effectiveness of the system, which was developed by ancient mathematicians in the Indian Subcontinent around AD 500.

The system was adopted by the Persian and Arab mathematicians in Baghdad and passed on to the Arabs further west. There is some evidence to suggest that the numerals in their current form developed from Arabic letters in the Maghreb, the western region of the Arab World. The current form of the numerals developed in North Africa, distinct in form from the Indian and eastern Arabic numerals. It was in the North African city of Bejaia that the Italian scholar Fibonacci first encountered the numerals; his work was crucial in making them known throughout Europe and then further to the Europeans who spread it worldwide. The use of Arabic numerals spread around the world through European trade, books and colonialism.

Arabic

Arabic (/ˈærəbɪk/;Arabic: العَرَبِية‎, al-ʻarabiyyah [alʕaraˈbijja] or Arabic: عربي ,عربى‎ ʻarabī [ˈʕarabiː]) is the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century and its modern descendants excluding Maltese. Arabic is spoken in a wide arc stretching across Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. Arabic belongs to the Afroasiatic family.

The literary language, called Modern Standard Arabic or Literary Arabic, is the only official form of Arabic. It is used in most written documents as well as in formal spoken occasions, such as lectures and news broadcasts.

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to Aramaic, Hebrew, Ugaritic and Phoenician. Standard Arabic is distinct from and more conservative than all of the spoken varieties, and the two exist in a state known as diglossia, used side-by-side for different societal functions.

Some of the spoken varieties are mutually unintelligible, both written and orally, and the varieties as a whole constitute a sociolinguistic language. This means that on purely linguistic grounds they would likely be considered to constitute more than one language, but are commonly grouped together as a single language for political or religious reasons (see below). If considered multiple languages, it is unclear how many languages there would be, as the spoken varieties form a dialect chain with no clear boundaries. If Arabic is considered a single language, it is perhaps spoken by as many as 422 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it one of the six most-spoken languages in the world. If considered separate languages, the most-spoken variety would most likely be Egyptian Arabic with 89 million native speakers—still greater than any other Afroasiatic language. Arabic also is a liturgical language of 1.6 billion Muslims. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.

Indian numerals

Indian numerals are the symbols representing numbers in India. These numerals are generally used in the context of the decimal Hindu–Arabic numeral system, and are distinct from, though related by descent to Arabic numerals.

Devanagari numerals and their Hindi names

Below is a list of the Indian numerals in their modern Devanagari form, the corresponding Hindu-Arabic (European) equivalents, their Hindi and Sanskrit pronunciation, and translations in some languages.

Since Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, it is obvious (as also seen from the table) that the words for numerals closely resemble those of Greek and Latin. The word "Shunya" for zero was translated into Arabic as "صفر" "sifr", meaning 'nothing' which became the term "zero" in many European languages from Medieval Latin, zephirum.

Other Indo-Aryan languages

The five Indian languages (Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali and Sanskrit itself) that have adapted the Devanagari script to their use also naturally employ the numeral symbols above; of course, the names for the numbers vary by language. The table below presents a listing of the symbols used in various modern Indian scripts in comparison to Hindu-Arabic and Eastern Arabic-Indic numerals for the numbers from zero to nine:

Hindu–Arabic numeral system

The Hindu–Arabic numeral system or Hindu numeral system, a positional decimal numeral system, is the most common system for the symbolic representation of numbers in the world. It was invented between the 1st and 4th centuries by Indian mathematicians. The system was adopted by Perso-Arabic mathematicians (Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī's c. 825 book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals) and Arab mathematicians (Al-Kindi's c. 830 volumes On the Use of the Hindu Numerals) by the 9th century. It later spread to medieval Europe by the High Middle Ages.

The system is based upon ten (originally nine) different glyphs. The symbols (glyphs) used to represent the system are in principle independent of the system itself. The glyphs in actual use are descended from Brahmi numerals and have split into various typographical variants since the Middle Ages.

These symbol sets can be divided into three main families: Arabic numerals used in the Greater Maghreb and in Europe, Eastern Arabic numerals (also called "Indic numerals") used in the Middle East, and the Indian numerals used in the Indian subcontinent.