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Arabic numerals
The ten Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation number with a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with Roman numerals. However the symbols are also used to write numbers in other bases, such as octal, as well as non-numerical information such as trademarks or license plate identifiers.
They are also called Western Arabic numerals, Western digits, European digits, Ghubār numerals, or Hindu–Arabic numerals due to positional notation (but not these digits) originating in India. The Oxford English Dictionary uses lowercase Arabic numerals while using the fully capitalized term Arabic Numerals for Eastern Arabic numerals. In contemporary society, the terms digits, numbers, and numerals often implies only these symbols, although it can only be inferred from context.
Europeans first learned of Arabic numerals c. the 10th century, though their spread was a gradual process. After Italian scholar Fibonacci of Pisa encountered the numerals in the Algerian city of Béjaïa, his 13th-century work Liber Abaci became crucial in making them known in Europe. However, their use was largely confined to Northern Italy until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. European trade, books, and colonialism subsequently helped popularize the adoption of Arabic numerals around the world. The numerals are used worldwide—significantly beyond the contemporary spread of the Latin alphabet—and have become common in the writing systems where other numeral systems existed previously, such as Chinese and Japanese numerals.
Positional decimal notation including a zero symbol was developed in India, using symbols visually distinct from those that would eventually enter into international use. As the concept spread, the sets of symbols used in different regions diverged over time.
The immediate ancestors of the digits now commonly called "Arabic numerals" were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabic speakers of Spain and North Africa, with digits at the time in wide use from Libya to Morocco. In the east from Egypt to Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, the Arabs were using the Eastern Arabic numerals or "Mashriki" numerals: ٠, ١, ٢, ٣, ٤, ٥, ٦, ٧, ٨, ٩.
Al-Nasawi wrote in the early 11th century that mathematicians had not agreed on the form of the numerals, but most of them had agreed to train themselves with the forms now known as Eastern Arabic numerals. The oldest specimens of the written numerals available are from Egypt and date to 873–874 AD. They show three forms of the numeral "2" and two forms of the numeral "3", and these variations indicate the divergence between what later became known as the Eastern Arabic numerals and the Western Arabic numerals. The Western Arabic numerals came to be used in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus from the 10th century onward. Some amount of consistency in the Western Arabic numeral forms endured from the 10th century, found in a Latin manuscript of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae from 976 and the Gerbertian abacus, into the 12th and 13th centuries, in early manuscripts of translations from the city of Toledo.
Calculations were originally performed using a dust board (takht, Latin: tabula), which involved writing symbols with a stylus and erasing them. The use of the dust board appears to have introduced a divergence in terminology as well: whereas the Hindu reckoning was called ḥisāb al-hindī in the east, it was called ḥisāb al-ghubār 'calculation with dust' in the west. The numerals themselves were referred to in the west as ashkāl al‐ghubār 'dust figures' or qalam al-ghubār 'dust letters'. Al-Uqlidisi later invented a system of calculations with ink and paper 'without board and erasing' (bi-ghayr takht wa-lā maḥw bal bi-dawāt wa-qirṭās).
A popular myth claims that the symbols were designed to indicate their numeric value through the number of angles they contained, but there is no contemporary evidence of this, and the myth is difficult to reconcile with any digits past 4.
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Arabic numerals
The ten Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation number with a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with Roman numerals. However the symbols are also used to write numbers in other bases, such as octal, as well as non-numerical information such as trademarks or license plate identifiers.
They are also called Western Arabic numerals, Western digits, European digits, Ghubār numerals, or Hindu–Arabic numerals due to positional notation (but not these digits) originating in India. The Oxford English Dictionary uses lowercase Arabic numerals while using the fully capitalized term Arabic Numerals for Eastern Arabic numerals. In contemporary society, the terms digits, numbers, and numerals often implies only these symbols, although it can only be inferred from context.
Europeans first learned of Arabic numerals c. the 10th century, though their spread was a gradual process. After Italian scholar Fibonacci of Pisa encountered the numerals in the Algerian city of Béjaïa, his 13th-century work Liber Abaci became crucial in making them known in Europe. However, their use was largely confined to Northern Italy until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. European trade, books, and colonialism subsequently helped popularize the adoption of Arabic numerals around the world. The numerals are used worldwide—significantly beyond the contemporary spread of the Latin alphabet—and have become common in the writing systems where other numeral systems existed previously, such as Chinese and Japanese numerals.
Positional decimal notation including a zero symbol was developed in India, using symbols visually distinct from those that would eventually enter into international use. As the concept spread, the sets of symbols used in different regions diverged over time.
The immediate ancestors of the digits now commonly called "Arabic numerals" were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabic speakers of Spain and North Africa, with digits at the time in wide use from Libya to Morocco. In the east from Egypt to Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, the Arabs were using the Eastern Arabic numerals or "Mashriki" numerals: ٠, ١, ٢, ٣, ٤, ٥, ٦, ٧, ٨, ٩.
Al-Nasawi wrote in the early 11th century that mathematicians had not agreed on the form of the numerals, but most of them had agreed to train themselves with the forms now known as Eastern Arabic numerals. The oldest specimens of the written numerals available are from Egypt and date to 873–874 AD. They show three forms of the numeral "2" and two forms of the numeral "3", and these variations indicate the divergence between what later became known as the Eastern Arabic numerals and the Western Arabic numerals. The Western Arabic numerals came to be used in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus from the 10th century onward. Some amount of consistency in the Western Arabic numeral forms endured from the 10th century, found in a Latin manuscript of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae from 976 and the Gerbertian abacus, into the 12th and 13th centuries, in early manuscripts of translations from the city of Toledo.
Calculations were originally performed using a dust board (takht, Latin: tabula), which involved writing symbols with a stylus and erasing them. The use of the dust board appears to have introduced a divergence in terminology as well: whereas the Hindu reckoning was called ḥisāb al-hindī in the east, it was called ḥisāb al-ghubār 'calculation with dust' in the west. The numerals themselves were referred to in the west as ashkāl al‐ghubār 'dust figures' or qalam al-ghubār 'dust letters'. Al-Uqlidisi later invented a system of calculations with ink and paper 'without board and erasing' (bi-ghayr takht wa-lā maḥw bal bi-dawāt wa-qirṭās).
A popular myth claims that the symbols were designed to indicate their numeric value through the number of angles they contained, but there is no contemporary evidence of this, and the myth is difficult to reconcile with any digits past 4.