New York: Oxford University Press, 'Recording, communicating and making visible: A history of writing and systems of graphic symbolism in Africa.'

It should be noted that, as it was usually for alphabetic systems of numerical notation, large numerals did not have a firmly established representation standard, and for instance Chrisomalis (2010: 136–137 and 148) cites only numerals up to 9,000 written just in the Greek fashion. Journal Asiatique, 16:264–271, 'Obєri Ɔkaimє script, text, and counting system.' Swahili has an unusual system of numbers which blends Bantu and Arabic characteristics. Table 2.4: Ethiopic Debtera (Halehame) system. The script was invented in 1947–49 by Sòlóomana (Souleymane) Kántɛ, a Guinean scholar and enlightener, and was intended as a writing for Manding (Màndén) group of the Mande family (Niger-Congo languages) of West Africa; /nko/ means ‘I say’ in the languages of this group (Dalby 1969). Cambridge University Press, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. More information is given for less known systems, while other are described briefly. A special notation of monetary values was discovered in the Greek colony of Cyrene (Κυρήνη, modern Shahhat, Arabic شحات, in north-eastern Libya). Note that values from 500 to 900 did not have a unique sign in the Hebrew system. For numbers 1–9 vertical strokes were repeated the required number of times, grouped by three. Bagam is the outsiders’ name for these people, while the vernacular one is Eghap (Gordon 2005). Each decade till 180 has a special mark. For ancient numeric notation, the main source is Cajori (1928). right to left with the highest values placed rightmost. or. The complete table of the Ethiopic script is used in the Debtera (Halehame) system, see Table 2.4. The sign for 900 in the Ethiopic Gematria system is taken from the additional zemede series of signs for labiovelars, as does the sign for 1,000 (see Table 2.2). Notwithstanding the fact that alphabets first emerged among Semitic peoples, first of all Phoenicians, it seems quite reasonable to suggest the Greeks being the inventors of alphabetic numeric notation ca. There was an interesting system of fraction notation to represent 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. A curious feature of numeric notation in right-to-left scripts is that the order of digits is almost always the same as in left-to-right running scripts, i.e., the least-significant digits are placed to the right. Structurally the script is an alphasyllabary. Positional notations are briefly described in Section III. Both shapes and structure of the Rumi numeral notation demonstrate influence from Greek, Coptic, Zimām, and Arabic alphabetic system.