From: Kent Karlsson (kentk@md.chalmers.se)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 14:36:57 EST
> > The same is true for M which had, amongst its many early
> forms, a form close
> > to (I), [...]
>
>
> Cf. U+2180 in <http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2150.pdf>.
>
> Note that V is half an X (the upper half),
> L emerged from half a C (the upper half of its original form),
> D is half a U+2180 (the right half).
CI) [here in "ASCII ART" where ")" is a turned C]
was sometimes (later) used when a glyph for
what is now U+2180 was not available.
And then there is U+2282 (for 10000) and its half U+2281.
Sometimes (later) written as CCI)) and I))
Still missing in Unicode are the related symbols for 100000,
and 50000, which have three loops on either side (resp. to
the left) of the stem. Again these were sometimes later written
as CCCI))) and I))) when the proper symbols were not available.
References:
Page 79 of Graham Flegg, "Numbers -- Their History and Meaning". 1983.
Page 39 of Jan Gullberg, "Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers". 1997.
Pages 210-214 of Geneviève Guitel, "Histoire comparée des numérations
écrites". 1975. (Here you also find the notations used for 1000000,
as well as ½, 1/4 and 1/3 (looks like a 2...) and more.)
/kent k
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