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Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers
using letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still in use for ordinal numbers,
and in much the same situations as the Roman numerals are in the west;
for ordinary numbers, arabic numerals are used.
The earliest system of numerals in Greek was acrophonic, operating much like Roman numerals, with the following scheme: Ι = 1, Π = 5, Δ = 10,
Η = 100, Χ = 1000, and Μ = 10000.
Starting in the 4th century BC, the acrophonic system was replaced
with a quasi-decimal alphabetic system, sometimes called the Ionic numeral system. Each unit (1, 2, ..., 9) was
assigned a separate letter, each tens (10, 20, ..., 90) a separate letter, and each hundreds (100, 200, ..., 900) a separate
letter. This requires 27 letters, so the 24-letter Greek alphabet was extended by using three obsolete letters: digamma (ϝ, also used are ς or στ) for 6, qoppa (ϟ) for 90, and sampi (ϡ) for 900. An acute sign (´) is used
to distinguish numerals from letters.
The alphabetic system operates on the additive principle in which the numeric values of the letters are added together to form
the total. For example, 241 is represented as σμα´ (200 + 40 + 1).
To represent numbers from 1,000 to 999,999 the same letters are "recycled" to serve as thousands, tens of thousands, and
hundreds of thousands. A comma or inverted acute is put in front of thousands to distinguish them from the standard use. For
example, 2004 is represented as ,βδ´ (2000 + 4).
See also
Hebrew numerals: The Hebrew language has the same numeral
equivalencies.
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