5 (number)

:This article discusses the number five. For the year 5 AD, see 5. For other uses of 5, see 5 (disambiguation)

The Arabic glyph

The evolution of our modern glyph for five cannot be neatly traced back to the Brahmin Indians quite the same way it can for 1 to 4. Later on the Kushana and Gupta Indians had among themselves several different glyphs which bear no resemblance to the modern glyph. The Nagari and Punjabi took these glyphs and all came up with glyphs that look like a lowercase "h" rotated 180°. The Ghubar Arabs transformed the glyph in several different ways, coming up with glyphs that look more like 4s or 3s than 5s. It was from those characters that the Europeans finally came up with the modern 5, though from purely graphical evidence, it would be much easier to conclude that our modern 5 came from the Khmer.

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In fonts with text figures, 5 usually has a descender, for example, .

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