@AllenWitmerMiller (cc: @evograd)
We will see that nuances abound!
" The first mentions of the numerals in the West are found in the Codex Vigilanus of 976.[26]
From the 980s, Gerbert of Aurillac (later, Pope Sylvester II) used his position to spread knowledge of the numerals in Europe.
Gerbert studied in Barcelona in his youth. He was known to have requested mathematical treatises concerning the [astrolabe]
(Astrolabe - Wikipedia)from [Lupitus of Barcelona] (Lupitus of Barcelona - Wikipedia) after he had returned to France."
“Leonardo Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), a mathematician born in the Republic of Pisa who had studied in Béjaïa (Bougie), [Algeria] (Algeria - Wikipedia),
promoted the Indian numeral system in Europe with his 1202 book Liber Abaci.”
“The numerals are arranged with their lowest value digit to the right,
with higher value positions added to the left. This arrangement is
the same in Arabic as well as the Indo-European languages.”
@AllenWitmerMiller, it looks like these numbers were genuinely developed in
North Africa… (see text below) but there really were many intermediate steps,
so it wouldn’t surprise me if by tracking individual numbers, we find that some digits
achieved their definitive form in one region, and others in another region. As I
mentioned in an earlier post, the number 1 and the number 9 seemed to have
“fixed” earlier on (though it is imaginable that where 9 was first found in the
Western Arabic and where it was finally “fixed” could be different too).
Another Note:
While some sources are rather adamant that the Western Arabic numbers did
not have their origin in the number of angles being represented, I’m not so sure
we can immediately dismiss the hypothesis. While I assumed that this process
was a Western European process, it could have just as easily been a process
of the very cerebral Muslim mathematicians! It seems amazingly coincidental
(by anyone’s standards) that the numbers 1 to 8 should be so easily converted
into angular equivalents (with 7 being awkward, and yet also historically being
depicted awkwardly)… and yet with Eastern Arabic (٠ - ١ - ٢ - ٣ -٤ - ٥ - ٦ - ٧ - ٨ - ٩),
nor the Indian forms (०.१.२.३.४.५.६.७.८.९), we find such serendipity!
"The reason the digits are more commonly known as “Arabic numerals” in
Europe and the Americas is that they were introduced to Europe in the 10th
century by Arabic-speakers of North Africa, who were then using the digits
from Libya to Morocco. Arabs, on the other hand, call the base-10 system
(not just these digits) “Hindu numerals”,
[27]; [28]
referring to their origin in India."
"This is not to be confused with what the Arabs call the “Hindi numerals”, namely
**the Eastern Arabic numerals (٠ - ١ - ٢ - ٣ -٤ - ٥ - ٦ - ٧ - ٨ - ٩) **
used in the Middle East, or any of the numerals currently used in Indian languages
(e.g. Devanagari: ०.१.२.३.४.५.६.७.८.९).[[21]]
(Arabic numerals - Wikipedia)
"The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the
printing press, and they became widely
known during the 15th century."