Question About Other Languages

http://www.omniglot.com/language/numerals.htm

1,2, 3 seems standard for those using the same alphabet, like Spanish and German.

So, if you sit a maths examination in complex Chinese, how do they know if you're right or wrong?

Easy. You get a big red X if it's wong.

ooh, that's a very cool website!

mayan numeral system

Because English is the world language for business, Bella Dea, every country, at least in its business sector, would understand and be able to use our system of numerals. But there are other symbols for numbers in other languages.

I assume you're familiar with Roman numerals, Bella? You know -- I, II,III, IV, V, VII etc, etc. X is ten, C is 100 and so forth, That's just one example of a totally different system, even though it still uses a base-10. What we use today are called Arabic numerals because it was supposedly the Arabs who invented this system and introduced it to the Europeans during the Middle Ages. However, knowing these so-called "Arabic" numerals ain't gonna do ya a bit of good if you're visiting a country where Arabic is the major language. They use an entirely different set of squiggles. I discovered this when I was visiting Damascus, Syria some years ago.

Btw, JTT is absolutely correct in saying that in financial transactions the Arabic numerals have become standard worldwide just like the Christian calendar.

Actually, it has less to do with the English language but with the invention of the printing press.
The use of Roman and Arabic was accepted differently (I have some books from 16th century, which hardly use any Arabic numerals but for the printing date, another from 18th century which uses Roman numerals quite often [but not as page numbers, too]. Wont bother you with photos.)

I just looked through the newer book again: the author/printer uses Roman numerals there mainly for dates (only), even for notes in the margin (which isn't done in the older books I have).

Apparently it was common throughout the ancient med basin to use letters for numbers as we see in Roman numerals. There are also claims that numerical representations of entire phrases and sentences were meaningful at one time:

http://www.biblecode.com/

I knew I could count on you guys! That is really interesting! Thanks!

Numbers are similar and in most cases nearly identical within our own Indo-European family of languages, English, French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Russian etc. Between any two families of languages they are not similar or related other than possibly for borrowing.

Here's one for anybody into history of languages...

At some early point within our Indo-European family at least there was something about the number eight which was associated with the day time so that the word for "night" became "no eight" in many if not most of the languages; i.e. the idea is the same in the various languages but the word itself varies with "eight" as it is spoken in each of them:

'night' -- English
Nacht -- German
nuit -- French
noch -- Russian etc. etc.

I don´t understand the no eight becoming night in most Indo-European languages.
No eight in German would be kein acht
No eight in Swedish would be ingen atta (first a should be written with an o above) Night is natt in Swedish.
In Danish it would be ingen otte - even better ingen ottetal. Night is nat in Danish

That's interesting, but doesn't seem true:
greek: οκτω,
latin: octo,
goth. ahtau,
Old High German ahtô,
Middle High German ahte,
etc. etc.

Nacht (night) is in Old High German and Middle High German the same: naht.

Just as one example ...

night = no eight/no light;
german: nacht = nein acht; (nacht = night, nein = no, acht = eight)
spanish: noche = no ocho; (noche = night, ocho = eight)
italian: notte = no otto; (...)
french: non huit = nuit (...)

That seems too far-fetched to be credible.