Cyrillic numerals

Numeral systems
Hindu–Arabic numeral system
Western Arabic Eastern Arabic Indian Bengali Gurmukhi Sinhala Tamil Balinese Burmese Dzongkha Javanese Khmer Lao Mongolian Thai
East Asian
Chinese Suzhou Japanese Korean Vietnamese Counting rods
Alphabetic
Abjad Armenian Āryabhaṭa Cyrillic Ge'ez Georgian Greek Hebrew Roman
Former
Aegean Attic Babylonian Brahmi Egyptian Etruscan Inuit Kharosthi Mayan Quipu Prehistoric
Positional systems by base
2 3 4 5 6 8 10 12 16 20 60
Non-standard positional numeral systems
Bijective numeration (1) Signed-digit representation (Balanced ternary) factorial negative Complex-base system (2i) Non-integer representation (φ) mixed
List of numeral systems

The Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late tenth century. It was used by the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used in Russia as late as the early 18th century when Peter the Great replaced it with Arabic numerals. The Cyrillic numerals may still be found in books written in the Church Slavonic language.

General description

Tower clock with Cyrillic numerals in Suzdal

The system is quasidecimal, basically the Ionian numeral system written with the corresponding graphemes of the Cyrillic script. The order is based on the original Greek alphabet and does not correspond to the different standard Cyrillic alphabetical orders. A separate letter is assigned to each unit (1, 2,... 9), each multiple of ten (10, 20,... 90) and each multiple of one hundred (100, 200,... 900).

The numbers are written as pronounced in Slavonic, generally from high value position to low value position, with the exception of 11 through 19, which are pronounced and written units before tens. For example, 17 is "семнадсять", "s'em'-na-d's'at'" ("seven-on-ten", compare English seven-teen). To cipher a Cyrillic number, one has to add all the figures. To distinguish numbers from text, a titlo (   ҃ ) is drawn over the numbers. If the number exceeds 1000, the thousands sign ( ҂ ) is drawn before the figure, and the thousands figure are written with a letter assigned to the units. To produce larger numbers, a numeral can be enclosed in a modifying sign: a ten-thousands sign (    ⃝ ), a hundred-thousands sign (    ҈ ), a millions sign (    ҉ ), a ten-millions sign (    ꙰ ), a hundred-millions sign (    ꙱ ) or a billions sign (    ꙲ ).

Examples:

• – 1706
• – 7118

Glagolitic numerals work similarly except that numeric values are assigned according to the native alphabetic order of the Glagolitic alphabet rather than inherited from the order of the Greek alphabet.

Computing codes

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cyrillic numerals.

• Early Cyrillic alphabet
• Glagolitic alphabet
• Greek numerals
• Combining Cyrillic Millions

References

• Гаманович, Алипий (1984) [1964]. Grammar of the Church Slavonic Language. Jordanville, NY: Printshop of St. Job of Pochaev. p. 271. ISBN 9780884650645.