Eli5: Numbers seem to be universal but words and languages are not

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I’ve always noticed that numbers seemed to be the same for most or all languages but I’ve never been told why or how it came to be this way. So why are languages so different but have the same symbols for numbers

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Everyone else has good answers, but I want to add that numbers are not universal. It just so happens that as humans we naturally can use base 10 since we have 10 fingers. But there are other counting systems in other bases.

When I say base 10 I mean the typical numbering system. After we get to 10 it rolls over to a new word for instance nineteen, TWENTY……… twenty-nine, THIRTY, and so on. Some other culture may have used base 5 which would look something like four, FIVE, FIVE AND ONE….Five and four, TWO FIVES, and so on.

I know it seems strange to wrap.your head around, but really the base 10 way of counting and numbering is not a universal system per se. That being said, it has become the system for all people since we have that exact amount of fingers to count on.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Numbers, and more specifically, mathematics convey logic and understanding and outline systems and procedures. Language serves to express thought and emotion which differs from culture to culture and region to region. Something considered rude in one locale may be the opposite elsewhere but gravity still accelerates and the same measurable speed regardless.

Also an argument could be made for Latin because while it is still a language, it has been, more or less forcefully, adopted as the single language to address things like biology and religion (Catholicism anyways). That however is not something I am educated in enough to argue about it even know if I’m right lol

Anonymous 0 Comments

Numerals represent defined concepts shared by different cultures, and Arabic numerals (1,2,3,…) were used in trade where those concepts were easily shared by writing. The interesting part is that different languages have different words for them.

Languages had spread by speech long before writing, and even after writing different cultures pronounced things differently and diverged. That made languages become different from each other and why some are so different from others.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Numbers we use today are based on Arabic numerals. They were one of the first cultures in the world to invent zero and organize decimal number system. They were so advanced in mathematics that their work done during dark ages were preserved and then traveled to Europe and then spread to the rest of the world after 16th century.

The rest of world learned from Europe. Most cultures had their own number systems before. Roman numerals, Chinese numbers, Egyptian hieroglyphs all had their own numbers. Most lacked concept of zero or decimal system. Arabic number system was simple and beautiful and they had other concepts of mathematics like infinity, etc that proved more advanced at the time.