- From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
- Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 16:00:10 -0400
- To: Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hpl.hp.com>
- Cc: Simon Montagu <smontagu@smontagu.org>, Frank Ellermann <hmdmhdfmhdjmzdtjmzdtzktdkztdjz@gmail.com>, www-international@w3.org
Jeremy Carroll scripsit:
> He tells me:
> - classical arabic numbers are RTL
> (compare Olde English "four and twenty blackbirds"
> - when writing in classical arabic mode numbers are written RTL (i.e.
> the hand moves from right to left)
> - dialects are polluted by the colonial languages (e.g. north african
> arabic by french).
> - this pollution results in numbers being said and/or written LTR (i.e.
> the hand jumps leftwards, moves back to the right when writing the
> number, and then jumps leftward again).
I believe that's right. In addition, the skipping method is used
when writing Persian and (with European digits) when writing Hebrew.
I don't know about other RTL languages.
I think your historical explanation is correct except for:
> This resulted in changes such that the phrase "four and twenty" is
> now archaic, because of the least significant digit first construction.
Doubtful, because only the last two digits were ever reversed
("one hundred and four-and-twenty" for 124) and because not all
European languages were affected ("ein hundert fier-und-zwanzig").
--
My confusion is rapidly waxing John Cowan
For XML Schema's too taxing: cowan@ccil.org
I'd use DTDs http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
If they had local trees --
I think I best switch to RELAX NG.
Received on Thursday, 1 May 2008 20:00:47 UTC