We’ve had two previews of the Malay Peninsula; next in line would come previews of Australia, but, since I only have one single preview for Dubai, which I’ll visit after Australia, I’d like to present that first, out of sequence.

Arabic Numerals   We are all aware that Western civilization has a heritage form of numerals based on the Roman/Latin alphabet, now used only alternatively, for listing sequences in outlines (I, II, III), royal names (Henry VIII) and, to the regret of many, years (the current year, MMX, is easy to interpret; harder is MDCCCXCIX). Most of us are happy to see the writing of years, even in a formal context, put into our primary system of Arabic numerals, writing 1899 and getting it over with.

[Quick digression: it’s even more common to talk about Roman numbers and Arabic numbers, but numbers are abstract concepts so you can’t “write numbers”. The symbols that are used to represent the abstract concepts are called numerals.]

We all know that the Romans were responsible for Roman numerals and the Arabs were responsible for Arabic numerals---right? Well, aren’t they? Didn’t they come from the Arabs to Europe and then spread around the world during the European expansionist period so that they are now totally international and used in virtually all languages? Well, yes, but, as we all also know, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when the knowledge is incomplete. So travelers begin to wonder why, when they go to Egypt (or Dubai) they find that the two above years, 2010 and 1899, are written:

Whoops. Aren’t the Egyptians Arabs? What’s going on here?

This is what I felt when I visited Egypt in 1965 and stared at the license plates of parked cars that looked like the above, and also what I’ll see in Dubai. And this is also what they mean when they say travel broadens you. You find a dichotomy like this between “what everybody knows” and the reality in the street--literally--and so you go back to the books. I found out at the time what these were and learned them--there are only ten different numerals, just like the ones we know--and have had fun with them since. And yes, they ARE Arabic numerals, although--surprise!--the Arabs invented neither these nor the more familiar ones.

Western & Eastern Arabic Numerals   Both variations of these numerals started in India, and then traveled west, via Persia (Iran), into the Arab world. Strictly speaking, they should be called Hindu numerals, or perhaps Hindu-Arabic numerals to tell the whole story, although that’s not going to happen. It’s like when you get a recipe from Grandma. She may have actually gotten it from her neighbor originally, but in your mind it’ll always be Grandma’s recipe. A recipient usually gives credit to the latest contact. But anyway, the numerals separated into two varieties on their trip west, and differentiating their locations is quite easy: we have Western Arabic numerals and Eastern Arabic numerals, since the system was modified as it moved west.

Western Arabic numerals are the version we know: 0123456789, so including “Western” in their name yields the “whole truth” of what they are. Their home ground is in North Africa, running from Morocco east to Libya. The home territory of Eastern Arabic numerals, examples of which are above, and which will be the topic of this essay, runs from Egypt (and the Sudan) through the entire Middle East, then leaves Arab territory but stays in Muslim territory covering Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even parts of India, where they started. Another group of non-Arab Muslims are the Turks, but when in 1928 Turkey dropped the Arabic alphabet in favor of writing Turkish in the Roman/Latin alphabet (2009/30 “Changing Writing Systems”), they dropped Eastern Arabic numerals as well in favor of Western Arabic numerals to align themselves more with the West.

It should be obvious that the home territory of the Eastern numerals, including populous Egypt, is larger than that of the Western ones, so it is indeed a curiosity that it was the Western ones that Europe adopted, and spread around the world. Actually, it seems to me it could have gone either way, when you consider the invasions of Europe, as follows.

The Arabs from Morocco are referred to historically as Moors, a word derived from the Roman province of Mauretania, which covered the region. (The Arabic name for Morocco is quite different, while the Western name Morocco derives from the name of the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.) The Moors invaded Spain and Portugal in 711 (as I always pointed out to my students of Spanish) and stayed until 1492 (Columbus had to wait until then), and by the 10C Western Arabic numerals had taken hold in Europe.

But do remember the invasion of Europe at the other end, the one that never was completely reversed. The Ottoman Turks invaded the entire Balkan region (and, although mostly reversed, the Turks still possess Constantinople/Istanbul) and famously laid siege to “the gates of Vienna” in 1529. At the time, the Turks were still using Eastern Arabic numerals, which means that these were in use in southeastern Europe for as long as the Turks were there, but they never spread across the continent, unlike the Turks’ introduction of coffee, which did.

It should also be pointed out that, since Western Arabic numerals became the international standard, they are today the alternate system in Eastern Arabic numeral areas, used for international purposes, as indicated by this telephone keypad (Illustration by Astriolok).

Finally, keep this unique quirk in mind. We are aware that some languages, including Semitic ones like Arabic and Hebrew, are written from right to left, while Western ones are written from left to right. But is anything in Western languages written from right to left? Think about it.

Let’s illustrate this new point this way. Roman numerals are home-grown. Although they have some unusual oddities, like how “IV” is written (take V and subtract I, since it’s in front), essentially Roman numerals are written from left to right, just like other writing. Another way to put it is that they expand from left to right: XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII. But part of the heritage of Arabic numerals, either Western or Eastern, is that we’ve borrowed, along with the numerals themselves, the system of writing (expanding) them from right to left: units start out over on the right, right next to the decimal point, then tens expand to the left, hundreds further left, and so on. It’s an aspect of Arabic heritage that we rarely think about.

Eastern Arabic Numerals   You will argue that there’s absolutely no practical reason to learn the Eastern Arabic numerals, and you’ll be absolutely right. But it’s both an intellectual exercise and a cultural exercise do to so. There are only ten of them from zero to nine and I have tricks making half of them quite easy. But first, here’s the whole set. Study them carefully.

It becomes immediately apparent below that 1 and 9 are almost the same as what we’re familiar with:

The only difference from what we’re used to is that each numeral seems to lean to the left. Take pen and paper, copy the numerals and practice writing them. Together they form the number 19 here, and the year 1911. Write them both, as well as 1991, 1999, and 1199.

The zero is an easy one:

It’s a diamond-shaped dot at mid-level. The trick to remembering it is that a simple dot is “almost nothing”, in other words, zero. You also see the year 1900. Copy them both, and write the years 1910, 1000, 1901, 1101.

The next two come in a pair as well. Unfortunately, they each look at first like a backward seven, but they’re actually 2 and 3:

The trick is to count the “horns”; 2 has two horns and 3 has three. And the year? 1932. Copy them, and write 1933, 1922, 1391, 1290, 2003, and the current year, 2010.

The next ones also can be remembered as a pair. They’re 7 and 8:

7 looks like a V, which is how you remember it: seVen. 8 looks like an upside-down V. Unfortunately, the only trick I have is to pair it with 7 and picture 8 as (seVen+1), in other words, flip the V. So you’re looking at, and copying, the number 78, and don’t be tricked by the year, 1987. Write 1787, 2007, 1899, 1971, 1980.

Here’s the number 5:

It looks at first like a mid-level circle, but actually it’s more like a mid-level equilateral triangle, with rounded points. The trick is to associate it with zero. Round numbers can be considered to end in zero or five; five is the donut, and zero is the donut hole. Copy the 5 and the year? 1572. Try 1503, 1925, 1859.

The last two don’t really match up, but can be learned together based on a similar trick. They’re 6 and 4:

The unwieldy trick is similar to the one used to remember 8 as being (seVen+1). 6 unfortunately looks like our 7, but is another one that leans left. The association is to remember 6 as (7-1). The 4 looks like a backward, sagging 3, so the association is to remember 4 as (3+1). That’s the best I can do, but that’s finally the end of the numerals. Copy both, including the year, which is? 1946. Try also 1475, 1667, 1840. your birth year, the birth year of others, and so on.

Be careful with look-alikes. Here, for example, are two years that appear as one thing at first sight, but are in reality quite different, being only seven years apart:

Did you finally read them as 1959 and 1966? Now go back to the telephone keypad above and compare what you know with what you see there.

Emergency Numbers   This next item is extremely simple. Just note what the three-digit emergency numbers in various countries would look like IF they were to be expressed in Eastern Arabic numerals. This is a highly selective list and is by no means complete. They are only from a number of countries where a single number is used for ALL emergency services.

US, Canada, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, Kosovo:

European Union and most other (not all) European countries; this is probably the most widely known code in the world:

UK & Ireland:

New Zealand:

Australia:

Nigeria, Myanmar/Burma:

Hong Kong, Ghana, Sudan, Bahrain, Malaysia, Qatar:

Philippines:

Dominican Republic:

Recognition Quiz   Let’s finish by practicing with some numerical trivia. See what you can recognize, and how fast you can do it. Following the clue, decide on either the left or right choice. No answers are given, but you can check above.

1) Number of fingers on a hand:

2) Number of wheels on a car:

3) Number of minutes in an hour:

4) Number of days in a week:

5) Number of weeks in a year:

6) Number of months in a year:

7) Number of days in a normal year:

8) Number of days in a leap year:

9) Number of states in the US:

10) Nine times four:

11) Eight squared:

12) The square root of forty-nine:

13) Number of degrees in a right angle:

14) Number of sides on a decagon:

15) Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number:

16) The year of Nine Eleven:

17) The American Revolution:

18) The French Revolution:

19) The Russian Revolution:

20) World War Two begins:

I hope this gives the reader a heightened outlook on the international heritage of the numerals we use and their relationship with the ones we don’t.