Talk:Greek numerals

message: I'm using a Unicode (utf8) MSIE browser and not all of the characters are displaying correctly. Does someone know what the symbols are and can they correct them to work with standard characters?
comment by Special:Contributions/71.139.23.245, 21:22, 17 April 2006
:The Attic numerals for 5, 50, 500, 5000, 50000 are not rendered correctly.  I think images should be used until wider support for these characters is available.  These images could eitehr replace the characters inline, or be a separate summary image of all the numerals.
:—DIV (128.250.80.15 (talk) 00:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I am duplicating the French ref for Linear A and B for the Attic numerals as well, because images of both are present in it. That ref has individual images of them, but they're probably covered by Copyright, so cannot be used here. — Joe Kress (talk) 03:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attic numerals 

message: From the article:
This requires 27 letters, so the 24-letter Greek alphabet was extended by using three obsolete letters: digamma (ϝ, also used are stigma ϛ or στ) for 6, qoppa (ϟ) for 90, and sampi (ϡ) for 900. See Numerals: Stigma, Koppa, Sampi.
Isn't this somewhat reverse?  I'd think the numeral system retained three letters that have since gone obsolete in Greek, no?  —Muke Tever talk 01:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The three characters were already obsolete in classical Greek as letters or were used only in restricted dialects or locations during classical times. See the reference cited in the article Numerals: Stigma, Koppa, Sampi and Greek alphabet#Obsolete letters. — Joe Kress 04:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "extended by using obsolete letters" 

message: A number is an abstract entity that represents a count or measurement, whereas a numeral is a symbol or group of symbols that represents a number. Therefore, "numeral" is the correct title for this article.   Andreas   (T) 01:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  numeral vs number 

message: The line "In modern Greek, upper case is preferred" is the first I knew this is still used.  How widespread is it? Is it like Roman numerals in latin-alphabet countires, just a veneer of antiquity not used for serious maths or arithmetic? jnestorius(talk) 22:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Greek numerals are used in modern Greek texts approximately to the same extent and in the same context as Roman numerals are used in texts written with the Latin alphabet. For example, they are used exclusively for royalties, for chapters in books, etc. The use of Lower-case letters, however, is very rare. Roman numerals are rarely used. 
Examples from the Greek WP and Wikisource:
*Kings of Macedonia: el:Βασιλείς της Μακεδονίας
*Chapters of a novel: s:el:Η_Φόνισσα
  Andreas   (T) 01:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are used generally as ordinal numbers. Names of kings, chapters in a book, but also for instance school classses. Thus, first grade would be Α' τάξη. Roman numerals are very rarely used in Greek, mostly in an academic context. Greek numerals are deffinitely not used for computations, excepting numerology, which seems to be a trend in Greek mystico-nationalistic circles. Note however that your average Greek would only easily recognise Greek numerals up to 6 (the number of grades in primary school), or in the best case 8 (the number of academic semesters). Anything higher than that would require some contemplation to recognise, and anything above 29 would cause much consternation even to your average philologist. Any knowledge of Roman numerals is even more limited, naturally. Another indication that Greek numerals are muchly a dead piece of tradition in Greece is that "Κωνσταντίνος Β'" would be literally pronounced as "Constantine B (the letter)" by most people, rather than "Constantine the Second". That is to say, they fully understand the intended meaning is "the second", but still pronounce the letter alphabetically rather than read it out as a numeral. Druworos 09:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

text:  They are used in the 1904 Patriarchal Edition of the Greek New Testament - this is Koine, not modern Greek, but it is a widely-used, relatively modern edition of the New Testament that still uses these numbers. 24.211.251.205 (talk) 20:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  modern Greek 

message: "For example, 2006 is represented as ͵βϛʹ (2000 + 6)." How did they made a difference between e.g. 950 001 and 900 051? Was it both ͵ϡναʹ?129.206.26.17 10:39, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguation? 

message: [Moved from User talk:Joe Kress#Greek numerals.]
Why did you remove my reference? Languagehat (talk) 22:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Your ref was from a Wikipedia mirror, Slider.com, which copied it from Wikipedia. The equivalent Wikipedia article is here as it appeared on 15 October 2005 before a merge tag was added in January 2006 and redirected to this article. The alternate name, Ionian numerals, should have been added to this article at that time. I removed your ref because a Wikpedia article cannot be a reference for another Wikipedia article as it is not a reliable source. — Joe Kress (talk) 23:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotcha -- thanks, and now I know better! Languagehat (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate name ref 

message: Capital letters were certainly used as numbers in antiquity as well, for instance when coins were dated. Like on Seleucid coins.
I think they should be added as well.
Sponsianus (talk) 09:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Capital letters

message: If by Byzantine times zero was written exactly as omicron, and the old notation is still used to this day, how would one distinguish the omicron for 70 from omicron for zero? Wouldn't it be grounds for confusion? 75.85.81.0 (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Byzantine zero was only used when copying Hellenistic astronomical works with sexagesimal notation, where the largest allowable number in any sexagesimal position was 59 (νθʹ), thus omicron must mean zero, not seventy. Compare this with our decimal notation, where the largest allowable number is any decimal position is 9. — Joe Kress (talk) 02:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Zero and seventy

message: Be on the lookout for spamming on this page. I just edited the statement "It came from Mars." from the "History" section of the article.
mast3rlinkx (talk) 22:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That was vandalism, not spam. I had to revert further back because the same IP editor added Mars as a link in See also. — Joe Kress (talk) 02:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam watch 

message: In Greece, this type of numeration is called Byzantine numbering. Fix it. Kthxbye. 195.10.10.180 (talk) 16:51, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a source for that? I thought they pre-dated the Byzantine era. -- Radagast3 (talk) 21:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  These are known as byzantine 

message: Greek minuscule  letters weren't invented until the 6th century CE, at the *earlierst*.  It seems strange (incorrect) to use them for the whole article on ancient Greek numerals...64.134.229.227 (talk) 22:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I am also mystified! Actually the Greek minuscule was introduced later, in the first half of the ninth century, in Constantinople (see Jean-Robert Armogathe et al., Histoire générale du christianisme. Volume I: des origines au XV-e siècle, 2010, p. 744).--Gerard1453 (talk) 16:49, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Upper-case / Lower-case 

message: The versions of TeX used by Wikipedia now include the archaic letters \stigma\, (stigma) and \koppa\, (koppa):
: 
\alpha\beta\gamma\delta\varepsilon\stigma\zeta\eta\vartheta\iota\kappa\lambda\mu\nu\xi\omicron\pi\koppa\varrho\sigma\tau\upsilon\varphi\chi\psi\omega\,
The precise appearance of these may depend on whether you're using mathJax or not.
: 
I created the table below for use in the article titled Ptolemy's table of chords.  It doesn't go beyond 100 because no numbers bigger than 180 are needed there.
: 
\begin{array}{|rlr|rlr|rlr|}
\hline
\alpha & \mathrm{alpha} &  1 & \iota & \mathrm{iota} & 10 & \varrho & \mathrm{rho} & 100 \\  \beta & \mathrm{beta} & 2 & \kappa & \mathrm{kappa} & 20 & & & \\  \gamma & \mathrm{gamma} & 3 & \lambda & \mathrm{lambda} & 30 & & & \\  \delta & \mathrm{delta} & 4 & \mu & \mathrm{mu} & 40 & & & \\  \varepsilon & \mathrm{epsilon} & 5 & \nu & \mathrm{nu} & 50 & & & \\  \stigma & \mathrm{stigma\ (archaic)} & 6 & \xi & \mathrm{xi} & 60 & & & \\  \zeta & \mathrm{zeta} & 7 & \omicron & \mathrm{omicron} & 70 & & & \\  \eta & \mathrm{eta} & 8 & \pi & \mathrm{pi} & 80 & & & \\  \vartheta & \mathrm{theta} & 9 & \koppa & \mathrm{koppa\ (archaic)} & 90 & & & \\  \hline
\end{array}
Michael Hardy (talk) 17:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  some letters in [[TeX]] 

message: Does the "Greek Lower Numeral Sign" (GLNS) stack?
If GLNS stacking is permitted then:
* 9,000,000,000,000,000,000 = ͵͵͵͵͵͵θʹ
DMahalko (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  GNLS stacking? 

message: Per WP:ERA, this edit established the page's usage as AD / BC and, pending a new consensus, that should be consistently maintained. Thanks. — LlywelynII 05:04, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: WP:ERA

message: The article on sampi is very well done and sourced and clearly states that the Greek letters placed over an M-looking symbol (really a variant san or sampi, not mu) are being multiplied by 1000, not 10 000. Accordingly, I've removed this text from the article:To represent greater numbers, the Greeks also used the myriad from the old Attic numeral system in their notation.  Its value is 10,000; the number of myriads was written above its symbol ().  For example,
: \stackrel{\delta\phi\pi\beta}{\overline{\Mu}}\overline{\psi\theta} = 4582\times 10,000+709 = 45,820,709. \, 
Other forms are also possible.  When that didn't suffice, the "myriad myriad" (one hundred million, written ) was used.The source here was very good as well (... in fact, it contains additional information about alternate systems and specifics that should be added to clarify some of the questions above) but I'd really like some direct clarification of when M is 40, 900, 1000×X, or 10000×X rather than just putting everything together with no explanation at all.
Was the myriad M just written larger? Was the Upsilon sometimes included over it important? Was the sampi m (×1000s) only a regional thing or very limited in time? etc... — LlywelynII 09:49, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: M

message: Although most of the non-Latin characters show properly there are a few, such as in the first sentence of the History Section of the main Article, that appear on my PC as little rectangles. Is this a problem with my setup, or with the way the text has been coded? --DStanB (talk) 15:51, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The text is coded correctly; it's just that the fonts used on your system do not include the necessary characters. Copying and pasting such characters into Google will usually bring up websites that show them as graphics, such as FileFormat. Double sharp (talk) 13:05, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Symbols do not display

message: I added... The art of assigning Greek letters also being thought of as numerals and therefore giving words/names/phrases a numeric sum that has meaning through being connected to words/names/phrases of similar sum is called isopsephy (gematria). - The Decoder 50.153.106.162 (talk) 18:15, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isopsephy (Gematria) 

message: According to Nobbe's edition, Ptolemy used a different system in his Geography. Apparently, rather than expressing the fractional part as multiples of 1/60, he composited the fractions from increasingly smaller partial fractions, like this:
λ̄ε 𐅵' γ' ιβ' = 30 + 5 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/12 = 35 + 55/60  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.146.117 (talk) 11:25, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ptolemy 

message: Nowhere in the article can the symbol for keraia, U+0374, ʹ, be found. The symbol used in the article is ʹ, U+02B9, modifier letter prime.
Is this intentional? - Leen 94.215.76.74 (talk) 11:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that somehow the symbol for keraia, ʹ is converted to ʹ. After submitting the above paragraph, I checked and the symbol I used was changed. In this paragraph I used HTML-entity encoding, ʹ, and thus has the correct symbol. - Leen 94.215.76.74 (talk) 11:26, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  This was still the case in the article as of just now. (I also took the liberty to do the same change in the above posts.) — Sebastian 15:12, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

text:  U+0374 canonically decomposes to U+02B9 (in other words, the two are fully equivalent, as far as Unicode is concerned; unfortunately, not all fonts respect the equivalence). I guess the wiki software normalizes all input to the NFC (the preferred form for the WWW). 91.230.17.46 (talk) 13:28, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  keraia symbol (U+0374, &#x0374;) vs. modifier letter prime symbol (U+02B9, ʹ) 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Apologies folks I signed up just a couple of months ago and have been banned for editing a page so I'm concerned about bringing this to attention BUT - the first reference on this page https://culturemath.ens.frhistoire%20des%20maths/htm/Verdan/Verdan.htm
Does not link to any relevant evidence - I am learning and therefore not learned enough to provide adequate alternate references however I hope that someone here can alleviate this assumed accidental error.
Regards, SuperSphingid.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supersphingid (talk • contribs) 00:06, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: Hi, I'm pretty new to Wikipedia editing and nowhere close to an expert on this topic, but lately I've been reading this and similar articles extensively for detailed information (among other sources, of course). I found that there was no information on what was used for fractions in modern use of the system, and little explanation of how numbers are distinguished from letters in ancient vs. modern usage.
For example, what may be useful is something like the following:
In antiquated usage of the system, numerals are marked with an overbar and use an upper keraia (prime) to mark fractions. In modern usage, numerals are marked with a prime and fractions are marked with a double prime. (http://www.opoudjis.net/unicode/numerals.html in the Keraia section near the bottom)
Apologies if this is incorrectly formatted or I somehow missed something, but I thought it was worth suggesting.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zedseven7 (talk • contribs) 01:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguity in fraction and general number distinction 

message: Music 69.142.45.128 (talk) 23:34, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:   Music composer perry Mason hbo 

message: Is is not immediately clear from the text how numbers between those for which specific symbols would be notated.  
For example, notation is shown for digits from 1-9, and for 10.  How would one write "11"?  Would it just be two copies of the digit for "1", or would it be like Roman numerals, with the symbol for "10" followed by the symbol for a "1"?  Or something else entirely?  
How about for "12"?  "1" followed by "2"?  Or "10" followed by "2"?  Or "10" followed by "1" and another "1"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  In-between numbers?