Tamil number system

From: Yung-Fong Tang (ftang@netscape.com)
Date: Fri May 19 2000 - 10:47:00 EDT


Can someone explain to me how Tamil numbering system work ?
Unicode 3.0 have define 12 numerals for Tamil. How do they present a
number ?

In the book "Writing Systems of The World", Akira Nakanish, ISBN
0-8048-1654-9, page 58. It said

     Numerals
     1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 100 1,000

     Tamil numerals have no sign for zero; thus,
     [1,000][9][100][8][10] 1980. Now only Arabic figures are used.

I cannot figure out the exact algorithm/rule from this example. I would
like some Tamil experts provide helps to me to understand it.

1. Is that true that the 1 of the most significant digit will be omit so
1980 is [1,000][9][100][8][10] but not [1][1,000][9][100][8][10] ?
2. How about number > 9999 ? Is there numeral character for 10,000 ?
100,000 ? Or you *reuse* the [10], [100], [1,00] numeral characters? If
so, how ?
3. What it will look like for the following number
a. 1980 -> [1,000][9][100][8][10] (example for expected answer format)

b. 2980
c. 11
d. 456,987
e. 450,000
f. 450,002



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