In Overstory we have already talked to you on several occasions about the origin of numbers depending on each culture and in fact we have already dedicated articles to them. Roman numerals or the egyptian numbersso I want to explain to you now what they are and what is the origin of the Arabic numbers.
Arabic numbers have different interpretations or theories regarding their origin or in fact how they were created and why. Before seeing what numbers they are and what we can interpret for each of them from the traditional numbers, we must then know what origin they have.
Origin of Arabic numbers
We have to move to the year 670, because it is at that time when this numbering arrived in the Middle East. The historical documentation that there is does not allow us to know the exact origin of this numbering, there has been talk of the Persians of India or the phoenicians as the creators of the Arabic numerals, but it is not really known. The hypothesis that has more weight is the one that is linked to Phoenician trade, since they needed to keep their accounts and trade was a source of immense diffusion. Even so, it is also said that the Arabic numeral systems used in India may have been born or influenced by the Chinese Hua Ma numeral system, which is also decimal based.
Thanks to the work of popularizers such as the Muslim mathematician Al-Jwarizmi, the Arabic numbers They soon reached multiple schools and cultural centers, including Christian Spain (let’s go back to the 10th century). In France, the monk Gerbert of Aurillac should be highlighted, who became Pope Silvestre II, and promoted this numbering system (from 1 to 9, he still did not know 0) throughout Europe.
The arabic numerals It is based on a decimal numbering system, that is, from 1 to 10 and these Arabic numbers are the numbers that we usually use in our day to day. In the 9th and 10th centuries they were used in Arab and Hispanic Arab schools. However, you also know another numbering system that is not used as often but that you will have also learned at school, they are the Roman numerals: I, II, III, IV, V… In these same centuries, IX and X, this numbering system was used in Christian schools.
As a curiosity, the difference in the speed and resolution of mathematical problems in the two schools, using the different numerical systems, showed that the Arabic numeral was simpler in operation and use than the Roman numeral.
It was not until the twelfth century that the term began to be used. number 0 thanks to the translation made in Spain (Toledo was the cradle of culture, where multiple civilizations lived together) of the book by Al Jwarizmi, “Liber Algorismi de numero indorum”.
what are arabic numbers
They are called Arabic numerals because it was the Arabs who introduced this numbering system to Europe. In its primitive form, the Phoenician Arabic system was made up according to the number of angles that each number could have (1 has only one angle, two has two, and so on).
Subsequently, this number system was represented in two large families of different symbols: western arabic numerals that developed in Al Ándalus and the Maghreb and Eastern Arabic Numerals that they developed in Persia; there is a variety that is the Eastern Indic Arabic that left its influence on the current Japanese writing.
Arabic numbers are characterized by being numbers that are actually represent from a series of symbolssuch as a dot or dash.
These that you see above, are the traditional numbers and next to them we have put the Arabic numbers that correspond to each one of them, so we can verify that each number is actually a small symbol.
In this way, 0, for example, corresponds to a point, while 1 corresponds to a line that, in fact, is quite similar to that number. By the way, you can see how the number 9 also has an Arabic number that is very similar.
Note also that some of these symbols even resemble each otherand in fact if we are not very used to writing them, we can make a mistake with 2 and 3 or with 7 and 8, which are still the same symbol although one represents a kind of “v” and the other is draw backwards.
The truth is that if your culture is not Arab, these numbers will be of little use to you, although they may do so to communicate in code with other friends or in fact to expand, and that a little culture never hurts .
Now it should be added that if you learn these symbols and know how to differentiate them, they may help you understand and learn Arabic writing much better, since apparently, both are very intertwined and also each of these numbers has a way of pronouncing that It is also recommended that we see.
Arabic numbers from 10
From what has been seen, it should be clarified that the Arabic numbers complicate their writing from 11 since the symbols grow, although it is easy to understand the method they use to do so.
In this way, we can say that from 11 to 99, Arabic numerals are known as «compounds» since the first number is written with the simple number (from 1 to 9) while the second is represented with the symbol for ten.
The tens are formed by adding the ending ونَ (in the nominative) or ينَ (in the genitive-accusative) to the simple number, eliminating the ة . They are the same in masculine and feminine.
The pronunciation of Arabic numbers
Learning another language is always a wonderful adventure that brings you closer to a culture and a way of seeing life. On this occasion, we leave you the pronunciation of the Arabic numbers so that you can get a little closer to this beautiful language.
Other articles of interest in Superhistory
Source: Arabic numerals: origin, diffusion and its development. Commerce and accounting as promoters F. Javier Quesada Sánchez, Dans Recherches en Sciences de Gestion 2012/3 (N° 90), pages 43 to 64