Arab numerals

The Arab Chiffres , which were initially used in France then in all the Europe and finally in the whole world, were borrowed from the Arab , which themselves had borrowed them from the Indiens.

History

The figures such as one knows them today in Occident were described in a work of Al Khawarizmi, and were probably transmitted to the Europe since the Moslem Andalusia towards the end of the 10th century thanks to the teaching of calculation on abacus , as practiced by the Arab . One finds of them certificates clear in the Liber abaci of Fibonacci, going back to 1202. They are Logogramme S.

Then of very limited employment, the use of these Arab numerals (that the Arabs name “Hindi figures”) really started to spread in Europe and in the Arab Monde only at the 12th century. Their definite location is attested as of the 15th century.

The word “Figure”, used initially to mean the Zero, comes from the Arab rear RTL الصفر, ( ʾaṣ-ṣifr , sifr ), which means the vacuum . The word zero comes from same the étymon Arab, but in the form that the Italians at the 15th century gave him, that is to say zefiro then zero . It is the literal translation of the 0 Sanskrit, or shunya (शून्य śūnya , “vacuum”).

The zero, that it is noted by a large point, a round or an oval, are also an invention of the cultures of the North of India (5th century) where it had a crowned value. One will notice however whom certain Indian writings of the South adopted a figure zero only very tardily during the 20th century by contagion of the zero created by the dominant cultures of North of India and under the influence of the other countries and cultures of the world which massively adopted it to facilitate calculations, whereas these same cultures had the other whole figures for a very long time and had even other additional figures to note the fractions.

C-Ws communication of common origin

Here a fast comparison between the current layouts of the Arab numerals compared to the figures that certain Arab countries use today (figures Hindi) and the figures such as layouts in several Indian writings.

It should be noted that the countries of the the Maghreb use only the modern layouts, contrary to the country of the Machreq (or the Middle East) which uses both. This type of European layout was probably invented besides in the Maghreb, probably in Al-Andalus.

The development of the decimal digits in Europe until the XVIIIe century is shown in this illustration of J.E. Montucla, which was published 1758 in its Histoire of mathematics :

Graphic alternatives in manuscript writing

the data processing specialists represent sometimes the Chiffre zero, “0”, while crossing it of an oblique bar, to avoid confusion with the letter “O”, which brings it closer to the Danish letter “Ø”.
the French-speaking people very often write the figure “1” provided with an oblique short bar going down towards the left starting from the top. The english-speaking and the French-speaking people of North America are satisfied with a vertical bar.
the French-speaking people often write the figure “7” provided with a median horizontal bar which avoids confusion with their figure “1”. This bar only is very seldom used by the english-speaking or the French-speaking people of North America, for which this risk of confusion does not exist.

See too

External bonds

Examples of “bilingual” classification according to HR 4 Europe:

Arab numerals/Indian figures devanāgarī
Arab numerals/figures Western arabo-Indians
Arab numerals/figures Eastern arabo-Indians

Zh-classical: 阿拉伯數字