Greek numerals

Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still in use for ordinal numbers, and in much the same situations as Roman numerals are in the West; for ordinary numbers, Arabic numerals are used.

Related Topics:
System of representing numbers - Greek alphabet - Greece - Ordinal number - Roman numerals - Arabic numerals

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The earliest system of numerals in Greek were the acrophonic Attic numerals, operating much like Roman numerals (which derived from this scheme), with the following formula: Ι = 1, Π = 5, Δ = 10, ΠΔ = 50, Η = 100, ΠΗ = 500, Χ = 1000, ΠΧ = 5000, Μ = 10000 and ΠΜ = 50000.

Related Topics:
Acrophonic - Attic numerals

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Starting in the 4th century BC, the Attic numerals were replaced with a quasi-decimal alphabetic system, sometimes called the Ionic numeral system. Each unit (1, 2, ..., 9) was assigned a separate letter, each tens (10, 20, ..., 90) a separate letter, and each hundreds (100, 200, ..., 900) a separate letter. This requires 27 letters, so the 24-letter Greek alphabet was extended by using three obsolete letters: digamma (ϝ, also used are stigma ϛ or στ) for 6, qoppa (Ϟ) for 90, and sampi (Ϡ) for 900. See Numerals: Stigma, Koppa, Sampi. An acute sign (´) is used to distinguish numerals from letters.

Related Topics:
4th century BC - Ionic numeral system - Digamma - Stigma - Qoppa - Sampi

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The alphabetic system operates on the additive principle in which the numeric values of the letters are added together to form the total. For example, 241 is represented as σμα´ (200 + 40 + 1).

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To represent numbers from 1,000 to 999,999 the same letters are reused to serve as thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands. A comma or inverted acute is put in front of thousands to distinguish them from the standard use. For example, 2004 is represented as ,βδ´ (2000 + 4).

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