So while Malayalam, Tamil & Telugu Wikipedias – use Arabic numerals, Kannada uses its own numerals.
Numbers in different languages numerals for free#
(Incidentally, isn’t it wonderful that you can download these for free from an official website!) However, the situation is not so in media (print, online or TV) – where most use Arabic numerals.
![numbers in different languages numerals numbers in different languages numerals](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/7e/55/ea7e5585d674941bf71ba5c3e5816a8d.jpg)
Some Kannada text books also use Kannada numerals such as the 10th standard textbooks. (It is actually thanks to this use of Kannada along with English in public space that I learned to read and write Kannada quickly (including numerals!)). Having lived in Bangalore for many years, I have seen Kannada numerals used for bus numbers and elsewhere. The wikipedias in these languages (Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam) also completely moved to Arabic numerals. The majority of the current generation of the speakers of these languages cannot even identify the numerals of their own mother language. Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam now use Arabic numerals almost exclusively for everything. Even school text books have gone down this road.
![numbers in different languages numerals numbers in different languages numerals](https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4099/4891501660_e7f4ca099f_b.jpg)
As all of you know, most Indic languages use unique scripts for writing the language while some share a common script, such as Devanagari (for Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Nepali and Bhojpuri).Ī very interesting phenomenon in Indic languages is the usage of numerals.