Re: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems fromconlangs)

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> (Arabic does that, which
> explains why their numbers look like they are written in the same order
> as ours. It's just that right-to-left written numbers given in the order
> units-tens-hundreds-thousands look like left-to-right numbers in the
> order thoudands-hundreds-tens-units).
I have not yet been able to find definitive information about whether
people (hand)writing Arabic actually do write the least significant digit
first.  There is general agreement that when writing Persian (and Hebrew,
for that matter), the most significant digit is written first, which
means one has to guess how much space will be required for the number.

In addition, while modern standard Arabic does speak numbers least
significant digit first, some colloquials do not.

--
It was impossible to inveigle           John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Into offering the slightest apology     http://www.reutershealth.com
For his Phenomenology.                      --W. H. Auden, from "People" (1953)