We all use numbers: we count the years that have passed, banknotes, the number of flowers in the bouquet of the hero of the day and the number of plates on the festive table. Without them, life is not possible. The ability to count is instilled in us from kindergarten, and even earlier.
Kids learn to count on sticks, then - on simple examples, then the multiplication table comes into play. Adults can easily convert currencies, measures of length and size, counting the family budget, investments in a business, or acres on a personal plot.
By the way, figures and numbers are related, but different categories. The number carries the designation of the number, which, in turn, displays its quantitative reference (or characteristic) and is a collection of numbers.
History of figures and numbers
Do you know how the numbers appeared? Behind such badges familiar to us from childhood lies a whole story, saturated with the spirit of antiquity and the trends of antiquity. If you trace the history of the appearance of numbers, you can see the traditions and culture of many peoples who lived long before us.
Our ancient ancestors instead of numbers left notches in the form of straight notches andsquiggles on durable wood, bones and stones to indicate the amount of stored food, primitive weapons and the like. One notch is one unit, a thousand notches is a thousand units. True, our ancestors knew only a few calculations - "one", "two" and "many".
In their research, pundits periodically get into confusion, because the history of the emergence of numbers and numbers is extremely confused. It is authentically known that the very first written numbers appeared in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. At the same time, in Mesopotamia they used cuneiform writing, and in Ancient Egypt - cursive hieroglyphs. The Mesopotamians applied icons on special clay tablets, while the Egyptians used papyri for this purpose. It was from the Egyptians that the ancient Greeks borrowed the numbers, remaking them in their own way.
Teaching from Greece
What were the Greek numbers? In ancient Greece, there were two systems of numbers and numbers - Attic and Ionic. Apparently, this is due to the mental work of mathematicians and philosophers living in the land of myths and legends and competing with each other in mathematical research.
The Attic system is similar to the decimal system, but the number 5 dominates in it. The Greek numerals, represented by the Attic calculus, were a repetition of collective signs and were similar to Mesopotamian. The number 1 was designated as a dash, 2 - two lines, 3 - three lines, 4 - respectively 4 lines. The number 5 was denoted by the first letter of the Greek word "penta", and 10- the first letter of the word "deka".
Before the Alexandrian era began in Greece, the Ionic number system appeared - Greek numerals, which were a tandem of the decimal number system and the Babylonian method. The numbers were a pattern of dashes and letters, but they were quite difficult for ordinary people to use. Such a system was used by the great Archimedes and other famous personalities of that time.
Union of letters and numbers
At the moment, in some cases, Ionic numbering is used - with its help, you can write numbers only from 1 to 99.999.999, using the Greek alphabet and knowing which letter carries the numerical value of units, tens and hundreds. By the way, such numbers are easy to read in ordinary words. It was the Greeks who became the pioneers, from whom this method of calculation was adopted by the Arabs, Semites and Slavs.
The ancient Greek alphabet consisted of 24 letters, 3 more letters were added to them, which had not been used for several thousand years. As a result, we received 27 letters, which were subsequently divided into 3 groups, each included 9 letters.
The first group included numbers from 1 to 9, while the number 1 was denoted by the first letter of the alphabet "alpha", 2 - by the second letter "beta", and so on up to the number 9, denoted by the letter "theta".
The second group included Greek numbers from 10 to 90, and the third - from 100 to 900. Numbers from 1000 and more were indicated as follows: the first one was written the corresponding letter from the first group(single place), then put a comma and write letters from the first and second groups. The largest number - 10.000 - was called separately and denoted by the letter "M". After some time, the letter was replaced with just a dot.
At the moment, the Greek alphabet includes only twenty letters. Do you need to use, let alone pronounce Greek numbers? Pronunciation matters a lot. To do this, you need at least a little knowledge of the alphabet. This article will help you figure it out. For convenience, we have made two tables that contain not only letters, but also Greek numbers, their translation into Russian and transcription (pronunciation).
Introducing the Greek alphabet
| Uppercase and lowercase letters | Greek name in Latin letters | Transcription | Greek letter translation into Russian |
| Α, α | Alpha | ['ælfə] | alpha |
| Β, β | Beta | ['bi:tə] | beta |
| Γ, γ | Gamma | ['gæmə] | gamma |
| Δ, δ | Delta | ['deltə] | delta |
| Ε, ε | Epsilon | ['epsəֽlɔn] | epsilon |
| Ζ, ζ | Zeta | ['zeitə] | zeta |
| Η, η | Eta | ['eitə] | this |
| Θ, θ | Theta | ['theitə] | theta |
| Ι, ι | Iota | [ai'outə] | iota |
| Κ, κ | Kappa | ['kæpə] | kappa |
| Μ, Μ | Mu | [mju:] | mu |
| Ν, ν | Nu | [nju:] | nude |
| Ξ, ξ | Xi | [ksi:] | xi |
| Ο, ο | Omicron | ['ɔməֽkrɔn] | omicron |
| Π, p | Pi | [pai] | pi |
| Ρ, ρ | Rho | [rou] | po |
| Σ, ς | Sigma | ['sigmə] | sigma |
| Τ, τ | Tau | tɔ:] | tau |
| Υ, υ | Upsilon | ['ju:psəֽlɔn] | upsilon |
| Φ, φ | Phi | [fi:] | fi |
| Χ, χ | Chi | [kai] | hee |
| Ψ, ψ | Psi | [psi:] | psi |
| Ω, ω | Omega | ['oumegə] | omega |
Greek counting to twenty
| Numbers | Writing in Greek | Pronunciation in Russian |
| 1 | ένας | ena |
| 2 | ένας | zio |
| 3 | τρια | tria |
| 4 | τεσσερα | tessera |
| 5 | πεντε | pande |
| 6 | εξτ | exi |
| 7 | εφτα | efta |
| 8 | οχτω | octo |
| 9 | εννια | ennya |
| 10 | δεκα | deka |
| 11 | εντεκα | enzeka |
| 12 | δωδεκα | dodeca |
| 13 | δεκατρεις | dekatrice |
| 14 | δεκατεσσερις | decateserres |
| 15 | δεκαπεντε | decapende |
| 16 | δεκαξτ | dekaexi |
| 17 | δεκαεφτα | dekaefta |
| 18 | δεκαοχτω | dekaohto |
| 19 | δεκαεννια | dekaennya |
| 20 | εικοστ | ikoosi |
Note to Word users
What advice would you give to active Microsoft Office users who want to try translating Greek numbers into Word? First of all, you need to install Word itself, and then MS Office Proofing Tools SP1. This is necessary for the full use of MS Office Word.
You also need to set up a Greek keyboard layout. How to do it? Move the mouse cursor to the keyboard indicator located in the lower right corner of the monitor and right-click on it. Next, in the menu that appears, select the following items: "Settings" "Language" "Keyboard layout" "Greek" "Greek Polytonic". If you know the standard English layout well enough, then using the Greek keyboard will not be difficult.
