3 ms·

I believe the numbers are the one thing in Arabic that are NOT written RTL.

• gumby 5y ago
  They are written RTL, it's simply that in Arabic numbers are written little endian. In case this comes off as sarcastic, it is not intended so.
  • thayne 5y ago
    In fact, the fact that arabic is written rtl is why our numbers are big endian. Because the European number system is based on the arabic system.
    • gumby 5y ago
      I don’t think that is true. Europe got decimal digits with their own characters via the arabs, true, but we use shapes derived from the original source, the Devanagari digits, not the shapes the Arabs developed due to their writing system/technology. South Asian languages other than Urdu are LTR. You can see the parallels here (clipped from Wikipedia): ० 0 १ 1 २ 2 ३ 3 ४ 4 ५ 5 ६ 6 ७ 7 ८ 8 ९ 9
  • microtherion 5y ago
    Ah, I get your point. They are _pronounced_ little endian, and consequently written that way RTL, which works out to big endian LTR, of course.