# Arabic, English, Hindi: Character Shapes for Numerals



## Syrian Bird

*Moderator Note:
This thread has been branched from this JP thread.*

Hello Lammn 
I appreciate much your contribution

It may be useful for everybody if I contribute my idea with:
Originally I have asked my question after I had published a website on the web. The website was available in both Arabic and English. However, the customer phoned me complaining that the numbers and dates were displayed on his screen in Hindi numbers ( The numbers used in the Arabic world) in both English and Arabic pages! Of course, I explained to him that this is a question of merely how you set your computer to display numbers on the screan, i.e. that there are no two different numbering systems on the computer system; it's up to you to choose the method of displaying them. At this moment, I recognised this point: If most of the world (Europe, North & South America, Africa and the middle east) all use, or are familiar to, the Arabic numbers, so what about Eastern Asia (Japan, S & N. Korea, China...)? Is it the same thing with you? Is it merely a question of how to display, or the Chinese numbers are considered a different set of characters on the computer?
However, from the begining, I tried to avoid making my question a technical one, and I still don't want to go outside the borders of this wonderful forum, but I only wanted in this post to explain the background of my question
My sincer appreciation to everybody writing in this forum, especially the supervisors

Syrian Bird


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## lammn

Hi Syrian Bird,

Most Chinese and Japanese can read Arabic numbers.
I don't understand why your customer was complaining.


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## palomnik

Syrian Bird said:


> However, the customer phoned me complaining that the numbers and dates were displayed on his screen in Hindi numbers ( The numbers used in the Arabic world) in both English and Arabic pages!


 
Bird, I presume you know that there are separate symbols for numbers in Hindi in the Devanagari writing system.


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## Syrian Bird

lammn said:


> Most Chinese and Japanese can read Arabic numbers.
> I don't understand why your customer was complaining


Yes, I agree with you Lammn  ! Nor me I don't understand why! I mean I don't see any problem when I read a page in _*Arabic Language*_ with _*Arabic numbers*_ (I hope you are not confused; cause Most of the world use Arabic numbers, except...... Arabic people themselves  , the official numbering used in Arabic countries is the Hindi numbering system). Neverthless, we are familiar with the Arabic numbers, furthermore, Arabic people who work in the computer/web domain prefer to use the Arabic numers rather than the Hindi ones, even in their daily life, may be because they tend to adopt a unified numbering system, but those who are not very envolved in this domain, especially old people (like my customer) consider that there's a heterogenity if we embed an Arabic text with Arabic numbers (giving that this customar has a PHD degree in economy from Paris and has been a professor in the university of Sorbonne 20 years ago! but he's is new to computer, because of his old age).



palomnic said:


> I presume you know that there are separate symbols for numbers in Hindi in the Devanagari writing system


Well... No! I don't have any idea about that! I only know that the numbers officially used in the Arabic countries are called Hindi numbers. Of course it will not work if I type them here to show them to you, cause, as I explained in the previous post, it's up to you to display them the "Arabic" way or the "Hindi" one, but you can view them on this link 
N.B. the auther of this page has committed a mistake by calling the Hindi numbers (that are in the 2nd raw) by Arabic numbers (but she is of course excused because Arabic people use them)

see you


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## palomnik

Bird:

Here are the Hindi (Devanagari) numbers:


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## Syrian Bird

palomnik said:


> Bird:
> 
> Here are the Hindi (Devanagari) numbers:


Ah fine... In fact I've never seen these numbers before. where are they used? 
And what about the "Hindi"  numbers that are used in the Arabic world? Is it the first time you see them?


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## palomnik

Syrian Bird said:


> Ah fine... In fact I've never seen these numbers before. where are they used?
> And what about the "Hindi" numbers that are used in the Arabic world? Is it the first time you see them?


 
Sorry, Bird, I should have realized that when you said "Hindi" numbers you meant the numbers used in the Arabic world.  Yes, I'm familiar with them...I lived in the Middle East for a few years in the eighties.


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