How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages

Re:How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages by nostromo on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @01:54PM (#6849182)

This happened before the internet with Arabic numerals.

There was a time when each culture had their own method for transcribing numbers. (My favorite is Egyptian Numerals that denoted 10,000 with a drawing of a bent finger.)

Today, I imagine (but I'm not sure) that I can travel almost anywhere in the world and the number 123 would mean the exact same thing. And that seems to be a good thing.

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Re:How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages by tsuyoshi on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @02:08PM (#6849283)

Sort of. There are two other numeral systems I know of that are still being used: Chinese (used in Chinese, Japanese, and to a lesser extent Korean) and Khmer (used in Khmer/Cambodian, Thai, and Lao). Literate people in places that use those numeral systems know and use Arabic numerals too, but the Chinese and Khmer numerals are in no danger of dying out anytime soon. And even in the English-speaking world, we still use Roman numerals in certain contexts.

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