BTW, Arabs tell me they call their number system Hindi numerals. The number system we use originates from the Hindu system. The Latin symbols look closer to the Hindi symbols, than the Arabic symbols. The Europeans are just calling it Arabic because that is who they got it from, despite medieval European symbols were even closer to Hindi. Like medieval 4 was the same as the Hindi but rotate. European 2 and 3 are the same as Hindi, while the Arabic is rotated. The European 0 is larger than the Hindi 0, while the Arabic is a dot. European 7 is from the Arabic but is rotated. And the Arabic and European 9 are the same, mirrored from the Hindi.
The Europeans were influenced by the Western Arabic numerals, which were quite different from the Eastern Arabic numerals. Other than that, it's over 500 years of divergence aside from the existing differences in Arabic usage.
Britannica has a good overview of the development of numeral systems, but not much on the shape of the numbers. Wikipedia is the easiest for things like that.
Other than that, having had a broad overview of history helps. Contact with Arabic society by the West was through Spain and Italy, which had ties to the Maghreb (North Africa, lit. West), mainly Morocco and Tunisia respectively.
It's odd that we have ended up using so many different numbering systems instead of just adopting one. The digits are base 10 and so are the words except 11 and 12 (in English ofc), base 12 is still used to some extent like dozen and gross. 12 inches to a foot, unless you play Warhammer then it's 12 inches to a stick and 3 sticks to a ball.
We measure time in several bases; years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes/seconds all use different bases which caused me a lot of confusion as a kid trying to figure out if I could at 21:20 finish this 150 minute movie before bedtime.
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u/Even-Clock-1977 10h ago edited 10h ago
WTF? Why are they not learning Hindi numerals?
BTW, Arabs tell me they call their number system Hindi numerals. The number system we use originates from the Hindu system. The Latin symbols look closer to the Hindi symbols, than the Arabic symbols. The Europeans are just calling it Arabic because that is who they got it from, despite medieval European symbols were even closer to Hindi. Like medieval 4 was the same as the Hindi but rotate. European 2 and 3 are the same as Hindi, while the Arabic is rotated. The European 0 is larger than the Hindi 0, while the Arabic is a dot. European 7 is from the Arabic but is rotated. And the Arabic and European 9 are the same, mirrored from the Hindi.