How the numbers looked and were written in ancient Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Our ancestors did not use either Arabic or Roman numerals. They saw a flock of crows in millions, and darkness in a billion.

You, of course, have heard about the existence of different numbers in the world. Someone probably easily distinguishes not only Arabic and Roman, but also Jewish, Babylonian, Bengali, Mongolian numbers … But do you know what numbers were used in Russia until the 18th century? Say, Roman, like in the rest of Europe? But no! The numbers were Cyrillic, and this is how they look:

In this counting system, the symbols of the Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic were used in sequential order.

In order to distinguish a letter from a number, a special icon was used, a wavy line called "titlo". This sign can be placed above the whole number or only above the middle or penultimate letter. Different numbers standing next to each other are separated by a dot approximately in the middle of the height of the letters.

To represent the numbers from 11 to 19, to the right of the corresponding digit we write one, which adds ten.

Is everything clear before 999? That is, up to ۰цч҃ѳ۰?

What's next? How to write a thousand, a million, a billion? This is where it gets a little more complicated and interesting.

The number 10,000 in Russia was called "darkness". When we use the word "darkness" in modern Russian, we mean, first of all, the absence of light. But there is also a second, outdated meaning of this word. This means "a lot", "countless" or the same 10 thousand. This meaning is inherited from the Türkic tuman - "10 thousand". The warriors of the horde of nomads who attacked Russia were called darkness.

Accordingly, a billion will sound like "the darkness of those". Yes, if you multiply ten thousand by ten thousand, you get one hundred million, not a billion. But such large numbers were rarely used at the time, and people did not bother memorizing their names or counting the number of zeros.

The number 10 million most likely turned into a "crow" thanks to the crosses that surround it and resemble birds. Likewise, because of the stick-shaped diacritics, 100 million became a "deck."

And there were no words or signs about numbers over a billion. And who needed them then? About such numbers in Russia they said: "And more than this, the human mind cannot understand"

By the way, there was no trace of zero in the Cyrillic counting system either.

Now the main question is: how to apply your new knowledge?

And as you wish. At your discretion and depending on the flight of imagination. Order yourself, for example, a wrist watch with Cyrillic numbers.

Write down in ancient Slavic numbers who owes you how much or how much money you have in your account. Remember that the memorable year in Cyrillic is spelled like this - в҃к۰, and the infection itself bears the number ۰ѳ҃і۰ (19), that Trump won sl҃v۰ electoral votes in the last election.

Hide from everyone the solution of the mathematical formula, count the people on Earth (we are approaching the figure 7.830.000.000; hint: you will need “three poker players” and three numbers from 1 to 9), meet the New Year or simply encrypt.

You can, for example, pin yourself a memorable date with Cyrillic numbers.

Angelina Jolie has Buddhist mantras, Arabic symbols, geographical coordinates, and Roman numerals on her body. If she knew about Cyrillic, we are sure she would have pinned herself the date when Winston Churchill promised "blood, tears and sweat" in the war against Nazi Germany. May 13, 1940 on her hand would look like this:

Or take Justin Bieber. He loves his mother so much that he stuffed her year of birth on his chest. He did it in Roman numerals, and not very correctly, but this is already his problem. Cyrillic 1975 looks like this:

What does your date of birth look like in Cyrillic numerals? Write in the comments. (We will not ask about the amount on the account, so be it.)