RE: [Fwd: Re: Colouring combining Marks]

From: Jony Rosenne (rosennej@qsm.co.il)
Date: Wed Jun 22 2005 - 17:54:59 CDT

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    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org
    > [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Gregg Reynolds
    > Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 9:09 PM
    > To: Peter Kirk
    > Cc: Unicode Discussion
    > Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Colouring combining Marks]
    >
    >
    > Peter Kirk wrote:
    >
    > > I rather agree that it doesn't matter, but the answer to
    > the question is
    > > mostly No. In the oldest written Hebrew sources that we
    > have, the Hebrew
    > > Bible, numerals are written out in full. The ordering rule in the
    > > earlier books is that thousands precede (i.e. are written
    > to the right
    > > of) hundreds, hundreds mostly precede smaller numbers, and
    > tens mostly
    > > precede units, i.e. consistently most significant part
    > first; but in
    > > later biblical books units often precede tens and hundreds
    > sometimes
    > > follow smaller numbers. A system of writing numerals with
    > letters was
    > > introduced after the Hebrew Bible was completed and is
    > still sometimes
    > > used; in this system the more significant part precedes (to
    > the right)
    > > the less significant. Reference: GKC §5k,134i. The order
    > only changed in
    > > modern times when western numerals were incorporated into
    > Hebrew text
    > > without being reversed.
    >
    > Thanks. So I take it that in modern Hebrew something like
    > 1923 would be
    > spoken one thousand nine hundred twenty three?

    Yes, but irrelevant. It is spelled one nine two three.

    Jony

    > (BTW, note
    > that "1913"
    > nineteen thirteen in English combines a pair of LSD phrases!)
    > Also what
    > is "GKC"?
    >
    > >
    > > I understand that ancient Egyptian numerals were also
    > written with the
    > > more significant part first, in the direction of writing.
    > This is also
    > > true of Greek and Roman numerals. So, unless Dean can give us
    > > counter-examples from cuneiform, I would say that
    > historically numerals
    > > were almost always written more significant part first.
    >
    > Hmm. It's an interesting thesis. For Arabic I think (but I'm not
    > certain) that traditional notation would put the larger number to the
    > right of the smaller. E.g. qaf = 80, dal = 4, so to write the
    > equivalent of 84 one would have placed the qaf to the right
    > of the dal.
    >
    > But of course you can't really compare traditional language-based
    > schemes with base 10 positional notation.
    >
    > -gregg
    >
    >
    >



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