From: hanene@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Hanene Ben Abdallah)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: RE: Arabic Numerals, THE ORIGN!
Date: 17 Nov 92 15:34:48 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Salam,
I've received the following message which the author intended to post
to the net but accidently didn't and later asked me to post it for
him.

-Hanene
--------        Original message

From morocco@shinano.cs.uec.ac.jp Mon Nov 16 05:52:24 1992
Posted-Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 19:53:26 JST
Received-Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 05:52:22 EST
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 19:53:26 JST
From: morocco@shinano.cs.uec.ac.jp (IGUIDER Youssef)
Return-Path: <morocco@shinano.cs.uec.ac.jp>
Message-Id: <9211161053.AA19147@shinano.cs.uec.ac.jp>
To: hanene@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Hanene Ben Abdallah)
Subject: RE: Arabic Numerals, THE ORIGIN!
Status: RO


Assalaamu Alaikum,

>Very interesting in deed! though painful for me as an Arab.
>Yes, Arabs invented the Arabic numerals'
>notation you know ("7"), but gave it up for some other notation ("V")
>which they call "Arabic numerals". Tunisia is one of the rare (if not
>only) Arab country that uses the Arabic numerals' notation 0, 1, 2,....

>Han\^ene

The Arabic numerals' notation 0, 1, 2,.... were invented by Arabs and is
used in all north-african arabic countries except Egypt, i think. 
These numerals count the number of angles (corners), so:

  /|
 / |      this figure involes one angle
   |                          ^^^
   |

  _____
      /
     /      and this one contains two angles
    /                             ^^^
   /_____

 ______
      /
     /
    /          ... three
    \
     \
      \
 ______\


        |
        |           it was the original number four, as it contains four
        |           angles. So, a native arab who writes from right to the 
 _______|_______    left, starting by the horizontal line and writing very 
        |           quickly will connect the end (left side) of the horizon-
        |           tal line with the beginning (top side) of the vertical 
        |           one. When the numbers were imported then, it was wrongly 
                    understood that the oblique line (the result of rapid 
                    hadwriting) is an essential part of the number.

    ________
   |
   |
   |________
            |        this figure contains five angles,
            |                             ^^^^
            |
   |        |
   |________|         

    _______
   |        
   |
   |                  ... six angles,                   
   |________              ^^^
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |________|

    _________
   |         |
   |___      |
             |
        _____|_____          seven angles,
             |               ^^^^^
             |
             |
             |

      _________
     |         |
     |         |              eight angles,
     |_________|              ^^^^^
     |         |
     |         |
     |         |
     |_________|

      _________
     |         |
     |         |
     |_________|_____          nine angles,
               |               ^^^^
               |
     |         |
     |_________|


 
            ....... and as you know the number ZERO does not involve any
                    angle in its figure.        ^^^^


Wa Ssalaam,
   """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
   "        *******                                                     "
   "     **         **                   Youssef   Iguider              "
   "     ** [0]-[0] **                    (Ph.D  student)               "
   "      O         O           University of Electro-communications    "
   "      I   \_/   I             Department of Computer Sciences       "
   "      I  """""  I                      Tokyo - Japan                "
   "        --___--             ____________________________________    "
   "         <>o<>              E-mail: morocco@shinano.cs.uec.ac.jp    "
   """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""