The Suzhou numerals, also known as ' (), is a
numeral system
A numeral system (or system of numeration) is a writing system for expressing numbers; that is, a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using Numerical digit, digits or other symbols in a consistent manner.
The same s ...
used in China before the introduction of
Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write Decimal, decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers ...
. The Suzhou numerals are also known as ' (), ' (), ' (), ' () and ' ().
History
The Suzhou numeral system is the only surviving variation of the
rod numeral
Counting rods () are small bars, typically 3–14 cm long, that were used by mathematicians for calculation in ancient East Asia. They are placed either horizontally or vertically to represent any integer or rational number.
The written fo ...
system. The rod numeral system is a
positional
Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or decimal system). More generally, a positional system is a numeral system in which the ...
numeral system used by the Chinese in mathematics. Suzhou numerals are a variation of the
Southern Song
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. ...
rod numerals.
Suzhou numerals were used as shorthand in number-intensive areas of commerce such as accounting and bookkeeping. At the same time, standard
Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals are words and characters used to denote numbers in Chinese.
Today, speakers of Chinese use three written numeral systems: the system of Arabic numerals used worldwide, and two indigenous systems. The more familiar indigenous sy ...
were used in formal writing, akin to spelling out the numbers in English. Suzhou numerals were once popular in Chinese marketplaces, such as those in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
and Chinese restaurants in
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
before the 1990s, but they have gradually been supplanted by Arabic numerals. This is similar to what had happened in Europe with
Roman numerals
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
used in ancient and medieval Europe for mathematics and commerce. Nowadays, the Suzhou numeral system is only used for displaying prices in Chinese markets
or on traditional handwritten invoices.
Symbols
In the Suzhou numeral system, special symbols are used for digits instead of the Chinese characters. The digits of the Suzhou numerals are defined between U+3021 and U+3029 in
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
. An additional three code points starting from U+3038 were added later.
The symbols for 5 to 9 are derived from those for 0 to 4 by adding a vertical bar on top, which is similar to adding an upper bead which represents a value of 5 in an abacus. The resemblance makes the Suzhou numerals intuitive to use together with the abacus as the traditional calculation tool.
The numbers one, two, and three are all represented by vertical bars. This can cause confusion when they appear next to each other. Standard Chinese ideographs are often used in this situation to avoid ambiguity. For example, "21" is written as "" instead of "" which can be confused with "3" (). The first character of such sequences is usually represented by the Suzhou numeral, while the second character is represented by the Chinese ideograph.
Notations
The digits are
positional
Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or decimal system). More generally, a positional system is a numeral system in which the ...
. The full numerical notations are written in two lines to indicate numerical value,
order of magnitude
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic dis ...
, and
unit of measurement
A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude (mathematics), magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can ...
. Following the rod numeral system, the digits of the Suzhou numerals are always written horizontally from left to right, just like how numbers are represented in an abacus, even when used within vertically written documents.
![Suzhou numerals on banquet invoices (HKMH)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Suzhou_numerals_on_banquet_invoices_%28HKMH%29.jpg)
For example:
The first line contains the numerical values, in this example, "" stands for "4022". The second line consists of Chinese characters that represents the
order of magnitude
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic dis ...
and
unit of measurement
A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude (mathematics), magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can ...
of the first digit in the numerical representation. In this case "" which stands for "ten
yuan". When put together, it is then read as "40.22 yuan".
![Lin Heung Kui handwritten menu in Suzhou numerals](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Lin_Heung_Kui_handwritten_menu_in_Suzhou_numerals.jpg)
Possible characters denoting order of magnitude include:
* ''wàn'' (
) for myriads (As a variant of the traditional character , it is used for speed of writing in Suzhou numerals even before simplification of Chinese characters.)
* ''qiān'' (
) for thousands
* ''bǎi'' (
) for hundreds
* ''shí'' (
) for tens
* blank for ones
Other possible characters denoting unit of measurement include:
* ''yuán'' (
) for dollar
* ''máo'' (
or ) for 10 cents
* ''lǐ'' (
) for the
Chinese mile
''Li'' (, ''lǐ'', or , ''shìlǐ''), also known as the Chinese mile, is a traditional Chinese unit of distance. The li has varied considerably over time but was usually about one third of an English mile and now has a standardized length of ...
* any other
Chinese measurement unit
Notice that the decimal point is implicit when the first digit is set at the
ten position. Zero is represented by the character for zero (). Leading and trailing zeros are unnecessary in this system.
This is very similar to the modern
scientific notation
Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small (usually would result in a long string of digits) to be conveniently written in decimal form. It may be referred to as scientific form or standard index form, o ...
for
floating point
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...
numbers where the significant digits are represented in the mantissa and the order of magnitude is specified in the exponent. Also, the unit of measurement, with the first digit indicator, is usually aligned to the middle of the "numbers" row.
Hangzhou misnomer
In the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard version 3.0, these characters are incorrectly named
Hangzhou
Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...
style numerals. In the Unicode standard 4.0, an
erratum
An erratum or corrigendum (plurals: errata, corrigenda) (comes from la, errata corrige) is a correction of a published text. As a general rule, publishers issue an erratum for a production error (i.e., an error introduced during the publishing pro ...
was added which stated:
All references to "Hangzhou" in the Unicode standard have been corrected to "Suzhou" except for the character names themselves, which cannot be changed once assigned, according to the Unicode Stability Policy.
(This policy allows software to use the names as unique identifiers.)
In the episode "
The Blind Banker
"The Blind Banker" is the second episode of the television series '' Sherlock,'' first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 1 August 2010. It was written by Stephen Thompson and directed by Euros Lyn.
''Sherlock'' is a loose adaptation of Arthur ...
" of the 2010
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...
television series ''
Sherlock'',
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
erroneously refers to the number system as "Hangzhou" instead of the correct "Suzhou".
See also
*
Unicode numerals
A numeral (often called ''number'' in Unicode) is a character that denotes a number. The decimal number digits are used widely in various writing systems throughout the world, however the graphemes representing the decimal digits differ widely. Th ...
References
{{reflist
Numerals
Chinese mathematics
Numeral systems
Culture in Suzhou