Talk:Hebrew numerals

Normal practice in writing numbers does not use the sofit forms of the letter. Hundreds greater than 400 are usually made by combination, for example 700 = 400 + 300 = tav shin.

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I removed the following section, added by an anon:

Interesting fact

The Arabs did not invent the Arabic numerals, but instead the Hebrews did. The Hebrews decided to not use the number system that we use today except to express big numbers like 19,372, which could not be expressed in Hebrew numerals.

I don't believe it's true. If it is, please provide some kind of reference. -- uriber 22:03, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Date example

The example looks wrong. Shouldn't there be a ב before the אדר? - Wing

Adar אדר is the name of the month, of course. The letter ב, if added, would make it mean literally "4th in Adar", or the 4th of Adar. This is possible, though not necessary in Hebrew dates. It is correct even as "4th Adar".

Arabic numerals

Sorry, though it is true the Arabs did not invent what we now call Arabic numerals, they brought them from India, the place where they were invented. There is no reason to believe that these numerals were invented by any other people, Hebrew or otherwise.

Furthermore, the Hebrew numerals can be used to express numbers over 1,000.

Cbdorsett 07:41, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The so called Braham alphabets used in India were Aramaic

The so called Paleo-hebrew Alphabets are NOT Hebrew but Canaanites Even these Hebrew Alphabet are not Hebrew, But Aramaic.

Aramaic people were Originally Semitic Arabs immigrated from Arabia, Not Ashkinaz from Russia and Poland

Arabs are the FIRST whom Invented the Alphabets as well as Numbers

11:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thousands

The article says that when expressing years using Hebrew numberals, due to the fact that they are in thousands, for example, with five thousands, an ה should be added before the hundreds, and it is the thousands. This is true, but I really don't think it should be a seperate word. i.e, the year 5764 should not be expressed as ה' תשס"ד, but as התשס"ד. The ה cannot be mistaken to not be the thousands, because it appears before the hundreds.

Also, it is possible to express millions (and so on) this way: the number 63,948,031 can be expressed as סגתתקמחל"א (note this is just one character longer than the roman expression of the number).

Has this representation ever been used? Do you have a reference?--Doron 21:39, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I really don't think that what you think about what should be make any difference... That's how it is and it's not going to change.

Your method alredy conflicts with current uses, as the order of letters is insignificant always except for seperated thousands.

Chupchik

Chupchik is not a proper Hebrew word, it's a slang word, originating from Russian slang (Чубчик). I propose to remove reference to this word in this article, and from wikipedia in general (replacing with the proper "geresh" and "gershayim", as applicable).--Doron 12:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It is slang and I've never heard anyone refer to quotes as any sort of "chupchik". Perhaps occasionally someone might use the term due to ignorance of the correct word, but it's wrong to say that it's "commonly known as". Morbid88 00:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it should not be used as the primary way of referring to these symbols, but there is nothing wrong with making proper reference to the popular slang term. "This mark is known as geresh in Hebrew ("chupchik" in modern Israeli slang.)" The fact of the matter is that the slang term is widely used, not just some weird obscure usage. This is an encyclopedia, and as such, it should include all sorts of information, not just what is judged politically correct by pedants. --Cbdorsett 04:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

a. I've never heard it being referred to as "chupchik" until I read it in Wikipedia, and I'm a native speaker of Hebrew who lives in Israel, so it's definitely not widely used.

b. There's no particular reason why this slang word ought to appear in this article, it has no special significance. I can't imagine slang being used in other Wikipedia articles in the same way (how about "Television, popularly known as telly, is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures...").--Doron 08:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Children in the United States are commonly taught in Hebrew School that the symbol is called a "chupchik". I am a nearly-fluent speaker of Hebrew in the United States, having only learned in school, and I had no idea that the symbol was called anything else until I read this article. I say this not to doubt the veracity of the true name of the symbol, but to claim the worth of including its unofficial name, and the worth of explaining all the information surrounding their respective uses. 66.229.50.4 09:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Jennifer

How do you know it is common? Do you have a textbook that uses this term? If so, you can cite it and I wouldn't object.--Doron 09:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I actually have never seen it called a chupchik OR a geresh in a textbook, I have never seen it named anything until this article. When attending Hebrew School myself, my teacher called it "chupchik". When in college and writing things in Hebrew during Modern Hebrew classes, no student called it anything other than "chupchik", and my class comprised students from all over the country. When teaching Hebrew school for the past few years, in a different state from my home state where I grew up, other teachers and students in our school called it "chupchik". Admittedly, I draw solely on my own personal experiences, but I must point out that if others in the US have had similar experiences, it must be worth including the term to some degree. Even if the inclusion simply says something along the lines of "The term 'chupchik' is sometimes substituted for the correct term 'geresh'. 'Chupchik' is in fact neither proper nor Hebrew in origin, originating from Russian slang (Чубчик)." Can we agree here? --66.229.50.4 14:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)Jennifer

The Hebrew word geresh appears in any Hebrew dictionary. The word "chupchik", at best, is a slang word, and I don't see why the Wikipedia article should refer to slang words unless they have some special significance (I repeat my earlier example -- should we write "Television, popularly known as telly, is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures..."?). And besides, how do we know that "chupchik" is indeed so common? We can't base it on personal experience, your personal experience is quite different from mine. The way Wikipedia policy sees it is that if it is indeed significant enough to be mentioned, somebody must have already mentioned it in the literature. We are not supposed to write original material, certainly not from our personal experience, only to summarize published material from reliable sources. Well, this little chupchik appears to be very important to many people around here, I feel like a horrible person for objecting to it... Well, I won't object if you add something like you suggested above.--Doron 21:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The word "chupchik" is Yiddish (originating from Russian as perviouslys tated), not Hebrew. It is not used in Israel by Hebrew speakers, only by Yiddish speakers or other foreigners. -- Nahum (talk) 11:06, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Misspelling of echad

I don't know how to do Hebrew fonts here, so I can't just fix it, but the article has the Hebrew spelling of achat for echad.

Can someone with better Hebrew skills than I have check the nikkud in the table. It seems to differ from what I'm used to. echad as noted above, but others too. Another example is shlosha, which I believe is spelled (hebrew male) with out the vav, i.e. שְׁלשָׁה Thanks Bjskelly (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Some cardinal numerals had the wrong gender

I found was that only echad/achas was correct (between א-י) I took the most easy route simply switching column names and giving the numbers a check over, if any one wants to have femenim (which is really nice).

sources I based this on was: Ben-Yehuda's pocket English-Hebrew, Hebrew-Enlish Dictionary, ISBN 0-671-68862-6 And also Mordern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar, ISBN 9780415700825 blambi (talk) 13:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

the hebrew system is not a good system —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.255.202.116 (talk) 21:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Several incomplete sentences

There are a few places in this article that are incomplete or have been carelessly coded, as in the "Key exceptions" section. Some but not all of these instances appear to be related to the text direction switch when Hebrew type is introduced, as parentheses do not match (for instance the ends of the first two paragraphs in the "Gershayim" section). Satkomuni (talk) 07:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I note the same problem in both paragraphs of "Key Exceptions", as in the prior comment immediately above. The first sentence should say, in effect: the number 15 and 16 are written as 6+9 [insert Hebrew letters vav and tet] and 7+9 [insert Hebrew letter zayin and tet] .... Then add sentence that says, in effect, this is because 5+10 and 6+10 when written in Hebrew letters are words which are sometimes used for the deity. The words used in the present text are fine, just misplaced.

1,000,000,000,000 in Hebrew

1,000,000,000,000 in Hebrew is called billion, not trillion. I know this confuses Americans, but it is the proper Hebrew usage, based on Continental (European) usage rather than American. Thus 1,000,000 is million, 1,000 million is milliard; 1,000,000,000,000 is billion, 1000 billion is billiard; 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 is trillion, etc. This should be fixed in the article. Nahum (talk) 11:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

So fix it. ;) --Scimonster (talk) 13:36, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

A 2013 decision by the Academy of the Hebrew Language said that, no, you're wrong, it's like the American system except for 1,000,000,000, which is a milliard. Glide08 (talk) 00:05, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Numerals 500 to 900

In the opening section, it says "The later hundreds (500, 600, 700, 800 and 900) are represented by the sum of two or three letters representing the first four hundreds" contradicts the information in the table which suggests that the sofit letters are used instead. If you know which is correct, would you kindly fix it? Thank you! Linda — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lhutjens (talk • contribs) 14:35, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Past "20, gender does not apply"

So what's eg. 21? Or 121? Which gender, how are the words combined etc.

IMHO, this ought to be clarified with at least one example for each given.

-- 2003:C0:13CA:B7CC:7510:4873:DEBF:DD83 (talk) 20:59, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Origin of Hebrew numerals

I'm questioning this statement at the beginning: "The system was adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BC." Numerals are found in Genesis which was written about 1513, isn't that right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biotech99 (talk • contribs) 15:52, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

On 2/26/2018 I'm adding this. There are two formats to represent a numerical value: Written and Symbols. For example, Written five is the same as Symbol 5 or Symbol V. Is there a word to reference the Written version of a number to distinguish the difference?

Today I noticed that when numbers appear in the Bible, they are in the Written format. Did the earlier Hebrews (e.g. Moses) not use individual letters for one to ten? In other words, did they not use a Symbol format? Is that what the statement is saying, that Hebrew numerals (Symbol formats) was "adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BC"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biotech99 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Ordinal for "first" doesn't resemble Cardinal for "one"

Most of the Ordinals and Cardinals have resemblance. But Ordinal "first" (rishon, rishona) doesn't resemble Cardinal "one" (echad, achat). The word "first" in Genesis 1:5 appears to be "ehad" which is closer to echad and achat. Please see http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1.htm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biotech99 (talk • contribs) 15:58, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

BC to BCE

Given that this article covers a topic that is of significance to both academic scholars, and primarily Jewish individuals, should not the dating reflect the more neutral and scholarly BCE rather than the current BC? BibleScholar (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Needs fractions

Article could use a segment on how fractions are pronounced. Like: 3⅓, €2.5, … -- 95.90.221.93 (talk) 23:41, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

6001 in Hebrew numerals

How is the number 6001 written in Hebrew numerals? —Etewilak (talk) 02:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Number dots or puncta

The Unicode Standard chapter on Hebrew mentions the following in the section titled Puncta Extraordinaria:

In the Hebrew Bible, dots are written in various places above or below the base letters that are distinct from the vowel points and accents. These dots are referred to by scholars as puncta extraordinaria, and there are two kinds. The upper punctum, the more common of the two, has been encoded since Unicode 2.0 as U+05C4 HEBREW MARK UPPER DOT. The lower punctum is used in only one verse of the Bible, Psalm 27:13, and is encoded as U+05C5 HEBREW MARK LOWER DOT. The puncta generally differ in appearance from dots that occur above letters used to represent numbers; the number dots should be represented using U+0307 combining dot above and U+0308 COMBINING DIAERESIS.

Given that it says number dots should be represented using U+0307 and U+0308, we should replace the text

נפטר ביום כׄ אייר‎
ונקבר ביום כׄגׄ אייר‎
שנת תׄרׄצׄהׄ לפׄק‎

by the text

נפטר ביום כ̇ אייר‎
ונקבר ביום כ̇ג̇ אייר‎
שנת ת̇ר̇צ̇ה̇ לפ̇ק‎

--Moyogo/ (talk) 13:23, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

There is not such usage in Hebrew.

Hebrew Clock from Prague

The image has left/right reversed, for example the Hebrew letter Gimmel is on the left, should be on the right in the 3:00 position. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hohe_Synagoge_Prag_1.jpg I left this same note under the contributor's "talk" page. 2603:8080:C940:120:48C5:C244:91F4:BEB0 (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Masculine and Feminine numbers

I think some of these are in the wrong column. 2604:3D09:CD83:3500:580:7120:307C:B968 (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)