Talk:Indian numerals

Latest comment: 4 years ago by Kautilya3 in topic Target article

Target article

edit

This term/link is used in Wikipedia almost exclusively to indicate "the digits used in Indian languages", NOT base-10. In fact the term Hindu-Arabic numeral system often implies the western digits so that is absolutely wrong.

The previous "indian numerals" article has been edited to only Devaragi numerals so that is also wrong.

For now I direct it to a table I found that is about 3/4 Indian numerals. There is no article that this can correctly link to. Spitzak (talk) 19:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

I've had a look at a random sample of incoming links, and what a mess it is!
  1. Brahmi numerals has an odd lede, which however does support your position in the way it treats "Indian" and "Hindu-Arabic" as distinct
  2. Al-Kindi: link apparently intended for the general concept (and so Hindu–Arabic numeral system most appropriate)
  3. History of the Arabic alphabet, likewise
  4. Gujarati numerals: here the link takes the bizarre form [[Indian numerals|Devanagari numerals]]
  5. 12 (number): almost identical to the above
  6. 2: again similar: the links is [[Indian numerals#Telugu numerals and their names|Telugu]] whereas the intended target is Telugu numerals
Compounding the mess is the fact that most redirects for variations on "Hindu-Arabic numeral" are actually targeted at Arabic numerals [1]. I'll leave this mess for somebody else to deal with, but as for this redirect: it's clearly ambiguous and in such cases it's best to redirect to the article or section that encompasses all related meanings: Hindu–Arabic numeral system. I have no opinion on whether it might not be a good idea to have a separate article about the numerical characters of Indian scripts, something similar to what Devanagari numerals looked like before it was renamed and trimmed down [2]. – Uanfala (talk) 19:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, thanks for unearthing this. I remembered that I had seen a page somewhere, but had no idea that it was buried under Devanagari numerals. I think this content should form a page for "Indian numerals". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)Reply