• Æsc@lemmy.sdf.org
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    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
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      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
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        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
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        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.