Arabian Numerals

Arabian Numerals or CIPHERS—the characters 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Properly, they should be styled Hindu or Indian Numerals, for the Arabs borrowed them, along with the decimal system of notation, from the Hindus, probably in 773 A.D. Gerbert (afterwards Sylvester II.) seems to have learned the use of them from the Moors in Spain about the year 970. Yet their employment was long in making its way, and was not general before the invention of printing. Accounts continued to be kept in Roman numerals up to the 16th century. See NUMERALS, ALPHABET.