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A comment on Google Settles Account Settings Lawsuit Less Than One Week After Being Filed [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:Google Settles Account Settings Lawsuit Less Than One Wee... by lucb1e on Wednesday September 20, 2023 @04:02PM (#37589358)
> separate from the letters they are composed of

I didn't actually realise they're letters. To me it's distinct symbols just like 0 is a distinct ascii symbol from O.

Now that you mention it, I realise that I knew that five is V and M is a thousand or something, but the symbol for one/1, is that actually defined as a capital i and not just a line of some form? Since surely the digit for one came before the latin script

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Re:Google Settles Account Settings Lawsuit Less Than One Wee... by janc_ on Wednesday September 20, 2023 @05:53PM (#37590721)
Latin (and ancient Greek) didn't have dedicated symbols for numbers, but at sone point the Romans started using a shorthand system based on existing alphabetic symbols, which we now call "Roman numerals".

It's quite possible the "I"s started out as just a line to mark one item before the shorthand was developed, but certainly over time it became identified to capital "I".

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