Logic Behind the Design of Digits

[MountainDon]

Do you ever wonder how the shape of digits were designed?

The numbers we all use (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) are known as "arabic" numbers to distinguish them from the "Roman Numerals" (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, etc). Actually the Arabs popularized these numbers but they were originally used by the early phonecian traders to count and keep track of their trading accounts.

Have you ever thought why ........ 1 means "one", and 2 means "two"? The roman numerals are easy to understand but what was the logic behind the phonecian numbers?

It's all about angles !
It's the number of angles. If one writes the numbers down (see below) on a piece of paper in their older forms, one quickly sees why. Angle are marked with "o"s.

No 1 has one angle.
No 2 has two angles.
No 3 has three angles.
etc.

and "O" has no angles



From   http://amazingposts.blogspot.com/

[benevolance]

Don

you are like a refresher course for my History of english language course I took in University...we researched and talked about numbers and letters across the world and how they became commonplace and why some flourished and others failed.

look or Listen to the sounds of the numbers 1 through 10 in all the languages and in dozens of them they are identical...

Fascinating stuff really