| The decimal system (base 10) is used in every nation of the world. This is not surprising, given the number of digits on our hands. If homo sapiens had been born with twelve fingers, we would most likely use a duodecimal system.
While the decimal system is nearly universal, the shapes (or glyphs) used to write numbers are not. The Arabic numeral shapes of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are used in most of the world, either alone or in addition to other numeral shapes. For example, Indic numerals are used in many Arabic countries instead of, or in addition to, the Arabic numerals. These Indic numeral shapes are:
India, like the Arabic countries, has a parallel decimal system using different numeral shapes. What is more interesting is that each of the different scripts officially recognized in India have different numeral shapes. For example, the Devanagari script (used to write Hindi, Marathi, etc ) has these numeral shapes:
Malayalam has these numeral shapes:
China, Greece, Israel, Japan, Korea, and Thailand all have alternate glyphs used for counting or numbering, but they are not commonly used to express decimals, and some traditional number systems do not even provide a way to express zero. In computer operations, the difference in glyphs doesn't generally need to be recognized except at the time of entry or presentation. Quantities are invariant, regardless of the glyphs used to indicate them.
Cardinal and ordinal numbers
Numbers can be used to express either quantity or order. When numbers are used to state quantities (one, two, three..) they are called "cardinal numbers." When used to state order or sequence (first, second, third...) they are called "ordinal numbers."
Many cultures have different forms for cardinal and ordinal numbers. Various suffixes and forms are used in different countries and languages. For example, in French, the cardinal number five is cinq, but the ordinal fifth is cinquième or 5eme or 5e. Ordinal numbers in English can be written in numerals (1st, 2nd, ...) or in words (first, second, ...) but this is not true of all languages.
Ordinal numbers, however, are usually written in word form with a special ending. Like Farsi, most Asian languages do not simply add a suffix like "st" or "nd" at the end of a string of numerals to indicate ordinals.
Chinese and Japanese cardinal numbers are of special interest, because the numbers become tied to the category that they are counting. For example, in Japanese, the pure numeric sequence is ichi, ni, san, ...; when applied to bound objects (books) the count is issatsu, ni-satsu, san-satsu, .... A similar suffix, ban, appears with street names:
Matsuyama Daiichi-Seimei Bldg
2-11, Ichiban-cho 3-chome,
Matsuyama-city, Ehime 790, JAPAN
Chinese (Mandarin) also requires a "suffix" to describe a category for the item counted, such as -ben (books), -jang (flat things), and -wei (persons). In English, we do not have an equivalent usage, because we say "I want five tables" rather than "I want five flat things table."
Roman numerals are used for ordinal numbering, as in dates (for example, MCMLIX represents the year 1959) and in order of offspring (for example, John XXIII, L. Clay III). Such usage can be identified with countries influenced by the Roman empire, and is unlikely to be meaningful in Asian countries.
What is a billion?
Often words are used to represent some quantities. In English there is the well-known dozen used for a quantity of 12, and the lesser known bakers-dozen (13), score (20) and gross (144). But tread with caution here--you have to be sure that these names represent the same quantity. For example, in America the word "billion" represents 1 000 000 000; in Europe this is usually called a milliard or variation thereof. A European billion, however, is 1 000 000 000 000.
In India, the words lakh and crore mean 100 000 and 100 00 000 respectively and the usage (and the quantity representation) is universal across the languages in India. |
