A numeral (often called ''number'' in

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

) is a character that denotes a number. The

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers (''decimal fractions'') of th ...

number digits are used widely in various writing systems throughout the world, however the

graphemes In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

representing the decimal digits differ widely. Therefore Unicode includes 22 different sets of graphemes for the decimal digits, and also various decimal points, thousands separators, negative signs, etc. Unicode also includes several non-decimal numerals such as

Aegean numerals Aegean numbers was an additive Sign-value notation, sign-value numeral system used by the Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean civilizations. They are attested in the Linear A and Linear B scripts. They may have survived ...

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

, counting rod numerals, Mayan numerals, Cuneiform numerals and ancient Greek numerals. There is also a large number of typographical variations of the

Western Arabic numerals The ten Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation number with a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with Roman numerals. ...

provided for specialized mathematical use and for compatibility with earlier character sets, such as ² or ②, and composite characters such as ½.

Numerals by numeric property

Grouped by their numerical property as used in a text, Unicode has four values for Numeric Type. First there is the "not a number" type. Then there are decimal-radix numbers, commonly used in Western style decimals (plain 0–9), there are numbers that are not part of a decimal system such as Roman numbers, and decimal numbers in typographic context, such as encircled numbers. Not noted is a numbering like "A. B. C." for chapter numbering.

Hexadecimal digits

Hexadecimal digits in Unicode are not separate characters; existing letters and numbers are used. These characters have marked Character properties Hex_digit=Yes, and ASCII_Hex_digit=Yes when appropriate.

Numerals by script

Hindu–Arabic numerals

The

Hindu–Arabic numeral system The Hindu–Arabic numeral system (also known as the Indo-Arabic numeral system, Hindu numeral system, and Arabic numeral system) is a positional notation, positional Decimal, base-ten numeral system for representing integers; its extension t ...

involves ten digits representing 0–9. Unicode includes the

in the Basic Latin (or ASCII derived) block. The digits are repeated in several other scripts: Eastern Arabic, Balinese, Bengali, Devanagari, Ethiopic, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Telugu, Khmer, Lao, Limbu, Malayalam, Mongolian, Myanmar, New Tai Lue, Nko, Oriya, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Osmanya. Unicode includes a numeric value property for each digit to assist in collation and other text processing operations. However, there is no mapping between the various related digits. Although Arabic is written from right to left, while English is written left to right, in both languages numbers are written with the most significant digit on the left and the least significant on the right.

Fractions

The fraction slash character (U+2044) allows authors using Unicode to compose any arbitrary fraction along with the decimal digits. This was intended to instruct font rendering to make the surrounding digits smaller and raise them on the left and lower them on the right, but this is rarely implemented. (A workaround is to use the super/subscript characters described below, but only Arabic numerals are available.) Unicode also includes a handful of

vulgar fraction A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...

s as compatibility characters, but discourages their use.

Decimal fractions

Several characters in Unicode can serve as a decimal separator depending on the locale. Decimal fractions are represented in text as a sequence of decimal digit numerals with a decimal separator separating the whole-number portion from the fractional portion. For example, the decimal fraction for ¼ is expressed as zero-point-two-five ("0.25"). Unicode has no dedicated general decimal separator but unifies the decimal separator function with other punctuation characters. So the "." used in "0.25" is the same period character (U+002E) used to end the sentence. However, cultures vary in the glyph or grapheme used for a decimal separator. So in some locales, the comma (U+002C) may be used instead: "0,25". Still other locales use a space (or non-breaking space) for "0 25". The Arabic writing system includes a dedicated character for a decimal separator that looks much like a comma "٫" (U+066B) which when combined with the Arabic digits to express one-quarter appears as: "٠٫٢٥".

Characters for mathematical constants

Currently, three Unicode characters semantically represent mathematical constants: , the , and (of unknown significance). Other mathematical constants can be represented using characters that have multiple semantic uses. For example, although Unicode includes a character for ''natural exponent'' ℯ (U+212F) its UCS canonical name derives from its glyph: ; and the mathematical constant π, 3.141592.., is represented by .

Rich text and other compatibility numerals

The Western Arabic numerals also appear among the compatibility characters as rich text variant forms including bold, double-struck, monospace, sans-serif and sans-serif bold, along with fullwidth variants for legacy vertical text support. Rich text parenthesized, circled and other variants are also included in the blocks Enclosed CJK Letters and Months; Enclosed Alphanumerics, Superscripts and Subscripts; Number Forms; and Dingbats.

Suzhou (huāmǎ/Sūzhōu mǎzi) numerals

The ''huāmǎ'' ('')''/''Sūzhōu mǎzi'' () system is a variation of the rod numeral system. Rod numerals are closely related to the

counting rods Counting rods (筭) are small bars, typically 3–14 cm (1" to 6") long, that were used by mathematicians for calculation in ancient East Asia. They are placed either horizontally or vertically to represent any integer or rational number. ...

and the

abacus An abacus ( abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a hand-operated calculating tool which was used from ancient times in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, until the adoption of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. A ...

, which is why the numeric symbols for 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 in the ''huāmǎ'' system are represented in a similar way as on the abacus. Nowadays, the ''huāmǎ'' system is only used for displaying prices in Chinese markets or on traditional handwritten invoices. The digits of the Suzhou numerals are in the

CJK Symbols and Punctuation CJK Symbols and Punctuation is a Unicode block containing symbols and punctuation used for writing the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. It also contains one Chinese character. Block The block has variation sequences defined for East ...

block at U+3021—U+3029, U+3007, U+5341, U+5344, and U+5345. In Unicode 3.0 these characters are incorrectly called

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

style numerals. In the Unicode 4.0, an erratum was added which stated:All references to "Hangzhou" in the Unicode standard have been corrected to "Suzhou" except for the character names themselves, which cannot be changed once assigned, according to the Unicode Stability Policy. (This policy allows software to use the names as unique identifiers.)

Japanese and Korean numerals

Ancient Greek numerals

Unicode provides support for several variants of

Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, is a numeral system, system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal number (linguistics), ordi ...

, assigned to the

Supplementary Multilingual Plane In the Unicode standard, a plane is a contiguous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecimal ...

from U+10140 through U+1018F.Unicode Charts: Ancient Greek Numbers
/ref> Attic numerals were used by

ancient Greeks Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically re ...

, possibly from the

7th century BC The 7th century BC began the first day of 700 BC and ended the last day of 601 BC. The Neo-Assyrian Empire continued to dominate the Near East during this century, exercising formidable power over neighbors like Babylon and Egypt. In the last ...

. They were also known as Herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd-century manuscript by

Herodian Herodian or Herodianus () of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus'' (τῆς με ...

. They are also known as acrophonic numerals because all of the symbols used derive from the first letters of the words that the symbols represent: 'one', 'five', 'ten', 'hundred', 'thousand' and 'ten thousand'. See

and

acrophony Acrophony (; + 'sound') is the naming of letters of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter's name begins with the letter itself. For example, Greek letter names are acrophonic: the names of the letters α, β, γ, δ, are spelled with t ...

. ) , - , 1000 , Χ , () , - , 10000 , Μ , ()

Roman numerals

originated in ancient

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, adapted from Etruscan numerals. The system used in

classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

was slightly modified in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

to produce the system we use today. It is based on certain letters which are given values as numerals. Roman numerals are commonly used today in numbered lists (in outline format), clockfaces, pages preceding the main body of a book, chord triads in music analysis (

Roman numeral analysis In music theory, Roman numeral analysis is a type of Harmony, harmonic analysis in which chord (music), chords are represented by Roman numerals, which encode the chord's Degree (music), degree and Function_(music), harmonic function within a given ...

), the numbering of movie and video game sequels, book publication dates, successive political leaders or children with identical names, and the numbering of some sport events, such as the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

or the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...

. Unicode has a number of characters specifically designated as Roman numerals, as part of the ''

Number Forms Number Forms is a Unicode block containing Unicode compatibility characters that have specific meaning as numbers, but are constructed from other characters. They consist primarily of vulgar fractions and Roman numerals. In addition to the ch ...

''Unicode Number Forms
/ref> range from U+2160 to U+2188. This range includes both upper- and lowercase numerals, as well as pre-combined characters for numbers up to 12 (Ⅻ or XII). One reason for the existence of pre-combined numbers is to facilitate the setting of multiple-letter numbers (such as VIII) on a single horizontal line in Asian vertical text. The Unicode standard, however, includes special Roman numeral code points for compatibility only, stating that " r most purposes, it is preferable to compose the Roman numerals from sequences of the appropriate Latin letters". Additionally, characters exist for archaic forms of 1000, 5000, 10,000, large reversed C (Ɔ), late 6 (ↅ, similar to Greek Stigma: Ϛ), early 50 (ↆ, similar to down arrow ↓⫝⊥David J. Perry: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS
/ref>), 50,000, and 100,000. The small reversed c, ↄ, is not intended to be used in Roman numerals, but as

lower case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...

Claudian letter Ↄ. If using

blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter or black-letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for ...

script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

typefaces, Roman numerals are set in

Roman type In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of Typeface, historical type, alongside blackletter and Italic type, italic. Sometimes called normal or regular, it is distinct from these two for its upright style (relative to the ...

. Such typefaces may contain Roman numerals matching the style of the typeface in the Unicode range U+2160–217F; if they don't exist, a matching Antiqua typeface is used for Roman numerals. Unicode has characters for Roman fractions in the '' Ancient Symbols''Unicode Ancient Symbols
/ref> block: sextans, uncia, semuncia, sextula, dimidia sextula, siliqua, and as.

Counting rod numerals

Counting rod numerals are included in their own block in the

(SMP) as of Unicode 5.0. There are nine "horizontal" digits (U+1D360 to U+1D368) and nine "vertical" digits (U+1D369 to U+1D371), the horizontal digits are used for odd powers of ten and the vertical digits for even powers of ten. Zero should be represented by U+3007 (〇, ideographic number zero) and the negative sign should be represented by U+20E5 (combining reverse solidus overlay). This block also contains other counting-rod-like symbols, such as the well-known tally mark for 5 . As these were recently added to the character set and are not in the BMP, font support may still be limited.

References

{{unicode navigation Unicode Numerals