• Æsc@lemmy.sdf.org
    94·
    9 months ago

    Yes, ha ha, but Arabic Numerals, with a capital N, refers to ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ that’s 9 through 0 read left-to-right because Arabic is written right-to-left. While you can see how the West adopted numerals based on Arabic ones eight hundred years ago (thanks to Fibonacci), we only call them Arabic numerals, with a lowercase n, to distinguish them from the Roman numerals we were historically using. Today they aren’t really Arabic anymore, and I don’t know why you’d learn Arabic Numerals unless you were learning to read and write Arabic.

    • creation7758@lemmy.ml
      41·
      9 months ago

      Just some random guy who is not particularly educated about the subject here.

      I think that’s how the Arabs of today depict Arabic numerals. Both are Arabic numerals and there are many other scripts, for instance many variations of brahmic scripts that depict the Arabic numerals using various notations.

      So both are Arabic numerals using different notations and adapted to be used alongside their own writing system.

      • creation7758@lemmy.ml
        37·
        9 months ago

        Also, just to add, while it is known as Arabic numerals, it originated from India, so it’s often also known as the Hindu-Arabic numerals. It’s mostly known as Arabic numerals to the west because they came to know the numerology of the system via the Arabs. What makes the numerals is not the symbols, but other characteristics of the system such as the positional notation and the decimal base

      • lugal@lemmy.ml
        10·
        9 months ago

        The Arabs adopted the numbers from India and refere to them as Indian Numbers. I think the system is therefore sometimes called Indo-Arabic Numbers.

        So rather than brahmic using an adaptation of Arabic Numbers, it’s the other way around.

  • lugal@sopuli.xyz
    63·
    9 months ago

    What’s next? Latin alphabet? Imperial measurements? Once you let one it, the others will follow!

    • bleistift2@feddit.deEnglish
      8·
      9 months ago

      I guess you could reproduce that survey in any western country. I can’t think of many people who know “our” [Edit: numerals] are called “Arabic”.

      • Manucode@feddit.de
        10·
        9 months ago

        In Völklingen, Germany, this Nazi didn’t understand why the audience was laughing as he promised to end the use of Arabic house numbers once elected mayor.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
        7·
        9 months ago

        Speaking as a Dane, I literally can’t think of anyone I know personally who’s older than 10 and DOESN’T know…

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      17·
      9 months ago

      I respect people that have no opinion. Not everyone is going to know everything about every subject. Saying “I don’t know enough about this subject to have an opinion” should be considered completely valid.

      Case in point, someone that doesn’t know that Arabic Numerals are the ubiquitous number system in the world saying “I dunno” is way better than someone else that also doesn’t know this being pressured to give an answer. It’s certain that the 57% of the people that answered “No” were thinking that American schools should just teach the numerals they were taught and didn’t know Arabic numerals actually were what they were taught.

      Then we can make assumptions about people being racist for simply not knowing some math terminology. While there are indeed people that are racist, I think people simply not knowing the terminology is a more significant factor in this poll. It can be difficult to interpret polling data even in the best of times, and online polls are meaningless besides that.

      But it’s fun to point and laugh at people that don’t know correct terminology I guess.

    • mogoh@lemmy.ml
      10·
      9 months ago

      People want to see the results, so they would vote anything if there is no “no opinion” option.