Re: [alreq] Section on Background of Arabic Numerals (#131)

I read the terminology section last week. My comments here apply primarily to Arabic-Indic Numerals.
Two immediate thoughts came to mind when I first read it:
a) I would be more specific about the difference (or not) between the minus sign vs the negative sign, when it denotes a number that is < 0. Specifically, should the neg sum come before or after? Are there exceptions? What about the case with negative exponentiation? And does this need to be 100% or is it %100 consistent with the output of the JS International format object? And if Arabic numbers are read LTR, what is the impact of a trailing - sign, if any, from a BIDI/directionality perspective? Also, what about spacing considerations?

b) Fractions. I have an example (an Egyptian ad) where fractions can be represented as a numerator that is vertically atop the denominator, separated by a slightly tilted vinculum. Also the sequence of numerator/denominator cases must be nailed down with proof from primary source material. Wiki says otherwise from the terminology section. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals#:~:text=Negative%20signs%20are%20written%20to,%D9%AB%D9%A1%D9%A4%D9%A1%D9%A5%D9%A9%D9%A2%D9%A6%D9%A5%D9%A3%D9%A5%D9%A8%E2%80%8E%20(3.14159265358).
I may have other comments later on, as I am currently building an Arabic/ASCII calculator, using JS.

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‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 at 6:44 PM, Shervin Afshar ***@***.***> wrote:

> Thanks, ***@***.***(https://github.com/gounaman). I always enjoy talking shop about impacts of colonialism on naming things in the Middle East and North Africa, but if anything I'd like to narrow down this conversation on terminology and misnomers to a focused suggestion that could be cross-checked with (preferably) book sources and other experts and be applied to the document if needed. So far I've failed at that.
>
> I invite all on the thread to review [the terminology section](https://www.w3.org/TR/alreq/#h_preferred_terminology) of the document and keep the comments focused on what's reflected there and what are the editors recommendations and whether those recommendations are problematic. To summarize the document (and not the screenshots or sources mentioned in this issue) is using three distinct terms:
>
> - ASCII Numerals
> - Arabic-Indic Numerals
> - Eastern Arabic-Indic Numerals
>
> Personally I reckon that when talking in terms of Bilad El Arab or Umma, "Western" is anything to the west of Constantinople or Cairo and eastern anything east of those ancient cities.
>
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Received on Wednesday, 23 June 2021 23:45:50 UTC