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Is there a reasoning behind the depiction of the numbers as they are: $$\{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9\}$$

Is there any other form of depiction for $6$ and $9$ other than $VI$ and $IX$?

  • 0
    If anything, this is a question about notation rather than number theory, so I'm editing the tag.2012-08-22
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    How about '一二三四五六七八九'?2012-08-22
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    $一二三四五六七八九$, looks great. is it japanese.2012-08-22
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    It's Simplified Chinese but not sure about Japanese. Every culture has its own way to write numbers. I.E. Roman: I II III IV V VI VII VII IX. (they are more of numbers than digits)2012-08-22
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    If curious with ancient numerals used by the Chinese, [click here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals).2012-08-22
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    Hindu and Arabic forms of 1, 2, 3 are analogous to Chinese 一, 二, 三, not by relation, but by parallel evolution. Roman X and Chinese 十 are similarly analogous. I am not aware of any other similarities between Chinese and Western numerals.2012-08-22
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    I was always given to understand that the Babylonians had something to do with it. But I see Wikipedia lays most of the "blame" on the [Hindu-Arabic numeral system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system). (According to that article using zero came fairly late in the evolution of the system.)2012-08-22
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    it's Japanese too.2012-08-22

3 Answers 3

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The image below depicts numbers in Japanese.

enter image description here

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The first few are derived from ways to make $n$ marks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals#Origins

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At this link you’ll find links to descriptions of almost three dozen numeral systems. Some of them share a common origin with our familiar numerals $0,1,\dots,9$, and some are completely different in origin. The Brahmi numerals are the direct graphic ancestors of our numerals; as you can see from the picture there, the first three were basically just tally marks, but the rest have no obvious pictorial significance.