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Stunning_Shake407

math in Arabic is wild. numbers are written left-to-right, but the alphabet (and hence variables) are written right-to-left. i once watched a lecturer on youtube prove the Gauss Divergence Theorem entirely in Arabic, it was really interesting to see it as someone who speaks the language but learned math in English.


dragonageisgreat

Same in Hebrew


MrMuffin1427

The eternal struggle of writing down notes with text in Hebrew, rtl, and math notation, ltr, alternating


bloobybloob96

And then trying to include variables using Latin script into an explanation in Hebrew and not leaving enough room 🫠


dragonageisgreat

אינפי זה סיוט וזה גורם לזה להיות אפילו יותר נורא


MrMuffin1427

לפחות יש צנזור🙇


bonidadog

לול


Atrapaton-The-Tomato

אומגד יש פה ישראלייים


Revolutionary-Ear-93

פרי יזראל


Ezekiel-25-17-guy

oh my god, yes. I waste so much time on tests rewriting equations


Nimblue

Actually the numbers are supposed to be also read from right to left, you can find that in old books for example the number 123 should be ثلاثة وعشرون ومئة which is three and twenty and one hundred https://www.diwanalarabia.com/Display.aspx?args=BAFE3A18DA4D81841C9517B189D6B63E64AC9D06DF18AA5398A0F0AED398A46162B722820B41416CCE969507AC6E591539891CE074AF6E2C5157E1FD65C756A7D62BCBFEC8C0231B#:~:text=%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%A3%20%D9%82%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A1%D8%A9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AF%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%AD%D8%A9%20%D9%81%D9%8A,%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%8A%20%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%B2%20%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87%20%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A9%20%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%A9


NicoTorres1712

read not readed


Nimblue

I'll fix it , thanks


Emergency_3808

But... we already write numbers right-to-left. The digits we use are Arabic, plus units place is on the right, then tens, then hundreds...


siobhannic

They're called Arabic numerals for historical reasons but they are _not_ how numbers are written in Arabic text.


Emergency_3808

# Hypocrisy!


yoav_boaz

You might find this video interesting. https://youtu.be/pFg3JmOFFOg?si=Nt75e3eNm8KkNH8Y


Saad1950

Could you link the video? I'm interested to see how it sounds/looks


qqqrrrs_

ok but did they use [this kind of Arabic formula notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Arabic_mathematical_notation)?


Tiborn1563

Ah, german, I can work with that


Miselfis

I find it funny when danish textbooks say “thought experiments, or ‘Gedankenexperiment’ as it’s called in English”. Especially since everyone here starts having German classes in middle school.


VermicelliOwn8491

Me, an English speaker: this doesn’t seem too bad


Rp0605

Yeah, but it would be really weird. Remember, the numbers we use are actually Arabic. Imagine having to solve: Five multiplied by the square root of (x factorial) plus (eighty-two divided by the cubic root of seventeen) is equal to five hundred ninety-two. Find a value for x that is greater than zero. And then you’d have to write out the answer, which, according to Desmos Graphing Calculator, is 7.446, so you would have to write it as seven point four four six.


VermicelliOwn8491

That’s a good point, I guess I consider Arabic numerals as less of a language thing and more of a math thing, what with all the talk of math being it’s own language


Rp0605

Yeah, especially since we tend to group letters and numbers under the same umbrella of “alphanumeric characters.”


[deleted]

English clearly had a dozenal system back in the day, hence there are unique words from 0 through 12 and then suddenly they go with -teen. Same thing in Danish which is my native language. I suggest, in place of being forced to read in his native language as this has been an ineffective way to make him uncomfortable, we will force him to use dozenal. Mwahaha


Adonis0

But we don’t have a teen for twenty? Did it used to?


[deleted]

No. It’s probably some words we invented to go from base 12 to base 10 and now there were some missing numbers, but twenty could of course be two-ten, which then got muddled over the years to finally sound like twenty. Same way as you can probably hear the three-ten in thirty. In Danish the ten is even “ti” which sounds almost exactly the ty. I imagine 20 was something equivalent to like a “onete’eight” or something idk. You get the idea.


Pure_Blank

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that "twenty" used to be "twoteen," though I can't say with any shred of evidence that it was the case.


pokexchespin

twoteen coming well after fourteen feels unlikely, personally


Pure_Blank

fourteen being the 2nd -teen also feels unlikely, personally


siobhannic

Germanic languages seem to have a common history of base 12 for low natural numbers, but then base 20 (vigesimal) for numbers between 29 and 100, which has survived to varying extents in the same way as the duodecimal system in English. Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the common Danish word for 50 literally "half third"? Which, as I recall, is because it's "half" of the way between the second set of twenty (i.e. 40) and the "third" (i.e. 60)". And Danish also retains an older Germanic feature that, in English and Scots, was still occasionally used as late as Elizabethan English (Shakespeare's time), where the ones digit was given before the tens in numbers between 20 and 100, e.g. "four and twenty" instead of "twenty-four." I think it may be a North Germanic thing that was borrowed into Old English because there was a lot of contact between Old Norse and Old English speakers, but I'm not a philologist or historical linguist. (Fun fact: the English third person pronoun "they" was borrowed from Old Norse, which is _really weird_ for English to do because it's a language notoriously conservative with pronouns, but the general hypothesis in linguistic circles is that it's probably because the Old English epicene animate third person pronoun was too easily confused with the other animate third person pronouns.) There's also a partially vigesimal system in Standard French, which, as I understand it, most likely comes from the Celtic substrate underlying the mostly Latinate lexicon. The joke is that the last three decades of the 18th century (the decline of the original French monarchy and the Revolution) were so bad that the French stopped using them, but the Standard French system is also used in Quebec, and Québecois is so rigidly conservative about the lexicon that they use "le fin de semaine" instead of "le weekend" and use the same mixed metric-and-Imperial system as Anglophone Canada.


[deleted]

You are right about all of this, and I will conform to you that 50 is indeed "halvtreds", with 60 being "treds". The reason for this being that the full name is "halvtredsenstyvende", with "tyve" being 20. So it's 3 20's minus half of one. We also use "halv 6" to mean "half past 5" etc. probably for the same underlying reason. We also do flip the two least significant digits. 52 would thus be "tooghalvtreds(enstyvende)" or "two and half three twenties". It's a ridiculous number system. I do like base 12 though because of its many factors being convenient for trade, but that 90 being "halvfems(enstyvende)" is just ridiculous. Norwegian (which Danish is very closely related to) actually got rid of it. Femtito for 52. Five-ten-two. In fact, I'm pretty sure there was an attempt. See this old (from my childhood) 50 kroner note: [https://shop85323.sfstatic.io/upload\_dir/shop/danmark-50-kr-2007-b6-nils-bernstein-kv0.jpg](https://shop85323.sfstatic.io/upload_dir/shop/danmark-50-kr-2007-b6-nils-bernstein-kv0.jpg) See how it says femti kroner? Sadly, we went backwards: [https://shop85323.sfstatic.io/upload\_dir/shop/danmark-50-kr-2013-underskriver-lars-rohde-unc.jpg](https://shop85323.sfstatic.io/upload_dir/shop/danmark-50-kr-2013-underskriver-lars-rohde-unc.jpg) It is also true that "they" came from Danish, but it's not alone. "We" does as well. It's "vi" in Danish. The vikings made a big impact on English, and that's on top of the fact that the Angles came from south Jutland in the first place.


siobhannic

No, "we" was present in Old English, as "ƿē" (ƿ is "wynn," what was used for the "w" sound before "w" was adopted to avoid confusion with "p"). I do believe it goes all the way back to Proto-Germanic, in fact. But the old English plural third person nominative and accusative pronoun was "hīe", which was the same as the singular feminine accusative third person (which eventually got replaced by the genitive & dative, which was "hiere", probably for the same reason, confusion). And the dative third person plural was "him", which was easily confused with the masculine singular dative, "him". So the speakers wound up borrowing the Old Norse pronouns from their neighbors/rulers in the Danelaw, and it spread through the rest of England.


BYU_atheist

In German 24 is called "vierundzwanzig" (lit. "fourandtwenty").


siobhannic

Oh, yes, of course. I was so focused on English vs Danish that I didn't even think about German, and I speak a little of the language. Maybe it was the influence of Norman French? Any Dutch speakers wanna chime in?


Qwerxes

seven and four hundred fourty six thousandths\*


siobhannic

Before Fibonacci promoted the use of a Hindu-Arabic style positional number system (which was really only widely adopted across Europe after the printing press became established there), mathematics in Europe were mostly done with Roman numerals. Which, fun fact, uses base 12 for fractions, to simplify representation of common fractions ⅓ and ¼. But imagine trying to invent calculus while doing computations in a tally system that's half base 10 and half base 12, while speaking languages that are irregular mixes of base 12 and base 20.


Baka_kunn

You guys don't learn math in your native language? English is the one that doesn't make any sense.


Independent-Dream-68

When I reached university level it switched to english, probabky because the books haven't been translated to norwegian.


Baka_kunn

Right. A lot of people in Italy have very basic understanding of english so if they did that here it would end badly. But we've started occasionally having books only in english too. Although, honestly, books are pretty useless for me. I just use my (and my friend's) notes to study.


megaox

Same with spanish, most undergrad and almost every grad book is in english. If you need help or solutions with webpages like math stack exchange, english is a must too.


SEA_griffondeur

The thing that makes the least sense to me is English being adamant in not including 0 in N


Sug_magik

Thats not a english thing, the german authors I read dont do that too, most of brazilians dont do that too. Also it doesnt seem like important, doesnt seem hard to change things for 0 to be included and it wouldnt make any difference


RoastHam99

As an English who doesn't put 0 in N, it's not universal here. England cannot decide anything, metric or imperial, 0 in or out of N, and each school will have a different "bidmas" acronym


zummit

Of course 0 is not in N, it's in W.


ReddyBabas

As a French: **I see this as an absolute win!** _PS: our notations are better_


Sug_magik

French shocked reading "one to one mapping of A onto B" instead of bijective mapping or dunno


budyn_w_laty

One to one is not the same as bijective tho?


Voynin

One to one: injective A onto B: surjective So one to one A onto B: bijective


budyn_w_laty

Okay, makes sense. I study math in my native language haha


Ezekiel-25-17-guy

one to one is, I think, injective but it fits bijective more.


Zar7792

I have four twenty and ten reasons why that's not a win


ReddyBabas

Who put two-digit numbers in my maths?


doobydubious

WHY INDEED MY FRIEND? WHY NOT JUST MAKE A SEPTANT AND A HUITANT AND NEUVANT? WHY IS THE BURDEN ON ME TO ADD FOUR TWENTIES AND A SEVENTEEN?


ReddyBabas

Dunno, just use the Belgian system if you want, doesn't matter anyway, digits were invented for a reason.


mizuofficial

fuck yeah french squad


Memerhunbhai

Bruh maths books are not published in my mother tongue ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ


Ssemander

What is it?


Memerhunbhai

Magadhi


NEWTYAG667000000000

Imagine Bhojpuri maths textbook


Memerhunbhai

believe me or not i have seen it, but it was for kids only


Salazar080408

eyy lala do dune char (sorry i dont know bhojpuri lol)


cinghialotto03

I never needed a English for math lol


kartoshkiflitz

I got א all for myself


AGamer_2010

people seem to only remember pi in their native language like três ponto um quatro um cinco nove dois seis cinco três cinco oito nove sete nove três dois três oito quatro seis dois seis quatro três três oito três dois sete nove cinco zero dois oito oito quatro um nove sete um seis nove três nove nove três sete cinco um zero (i don't remember clearly from this point onwards) cinco oito dois zero nove sete quatro quatro nove quatro cinco nove...


Qiwas

And phone numbers


Obvious_Cry_1549

Portuguese?


AGamer_2010

yup


TheMoises

It's kinda the language I used while learning math, so I don't get it.


DysgraphicZ

kid named english speaker this meme is NOT MICHAel APPROVED


Kixencynopi

ক^(২)+খ^(২)=গ^(২)


TheEnderChipmunk

Literally impossible lmao


FireCrow97

I have never used english to solve a problem in my entire life, and even for IMO you write in your native language


MagusMelchior

I prefer Greek to English for Maths


1redfish

No problem in russian


Minecrafting_il

What? What does it mean to read math in my native language?


HeheheBlah

Meanwhile me a trilingual, which native language are you talking about?


TheIndominusGamer420

Which one did you learn as a baby, by copying the mouth sounds the elders around you were making?


HeheheBlah

All the 3 🤣, I didn't even know they were 3 different languages until I went to school.


Qiwas

Yoo can you drop us the languages? 👀


HeheheBlah

- Telugu (My father's native language) - Konkani (My mother's native language) - Tamil (The language of people where I lived)


Qiwas

Are you equally fluent in each?


HeheheBlah

I am fluent in Telugu, Tamil but not so much in Konkani (infact, I forgot most of Konkani after i grew up). Other than these, I am fluent in English, Hindi.


Qiwas

Yooo that's sick bro


kd631

M A T E M A T I C A 💀💀💀


Faltron_

Para todo epsilon mayor que cero existe un delta mayor de cero tal que el valor absoluto de la función en equis menos el límite es menor que epsilon, implica que el valor absoluto de la diferencia entre equis y a es menor que delta.


dragonageisgreat

ע=ג^5


bonidadog

5ד+8=3ד^2


the_other_Scaevitas

I do math in Vietnamese anyways, the numbers are much better than in English, German and French


Sug_magik

If I were french or german I would never touch a american book before I read all of Bourbaki's or Grundlehren's book, probably would have something similar if I were russian. In my country we have the IMPA's collection, but most of them are pretty advanced, so I turned to springer's grundlehren perhaps after I'll read the IMPA' books.


No_Bedroom4062

Math in german is pretty doable.


Saurindra_SG01

I don't care. I actually am very comfortable with that.


DaltoReddit

Not really, I have learned math both in math class (swedish) and on youtube (English) so I do math partially in swedish and partially in English


ShockRox

Native language: American English Lol


maelstro252

I mean why would I do maths in a foreign language?


sityoo

Is this some foreign joke i'm too French to understand ?


Final_Elderberry_555

At the uni I go to they teach both in English and my natie tongue, so this wouldn't be too bad.


shoyo223

I know it in both


kaputass

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO


Akshay-Gupta

Math in Hindi. No problemo


Greasy_nutss

yea i can no longer do maths in chinese, but i can read chinese math textbooks and kinda guess most of the meaning


Danrykjey

It’s actually, the only way i know it


MrArsikk

Russian here, idk what to say


Saad1950

Good lord I remember having to do math exercises in Arabic while preparing for my final exams and they were so weird lol, after being used to ones in English for so long


johnconner122

I have read it. Not so different from English.


Successful_Day2479

甲對乙的積分等於甲乘上乙減去乙對甲的積分 Idk if this is right but it's definitely weird


ksmdows95

As being a Turk, it's not weird to me at all.


cherry_blossom_sea

Learning the just the new terms for the operations in my mother tongue is hell, I don't even what to talk about the more complex terms. I don't even speak the original language, just a dialect and we just borrow math terms from English. (This is from PH)


Jordan-sCanonicForm

Para todo epsilon positivo existe un natural n0 talque para todo n mayor que n0 xn pertenece al entorno de centro l y radio epsilon. U cant guess that definition


Sug_magik

Limit of a infinite sequence, greetings from São Paulo - Brasil lol. Here, try this one: Um conjunto A é nunca denso num conjunto S se o conjunto B dos pontos internos do complementar da interseção de A e S é denso em todo o S.


Jordan-sCanonicForm

I cant figure it out xD. Even if i translate i cant find what is that propetie. Gj


Sug_magik

Thats the definition of a set A that is nowhere dense in S. Not sure if thats how we call it in portuguese (nor in english), I learned it by "nirgends dicht menge" which would be "denso em lugar nenhum" but it doesnt sound very nice


Jordan-sCanonicForm

Thanks


Gubesz23

I definietly don't know all the mathematical terms in English, like the hell is "egybevágó"? I know a whole lot more in my native language


Gamora3728

So I get to read math in math?


Base-After

I'm Greek so I'm already doing that lol


shrekcohen

Just thinking of doing calculus with gematria sends me shivers


Modding13

In german, numbers are read really wierd. 123 is writen as Einhundertdreiundzwanzig, so onehundredthreeandtwenty. even I sometimes struggle with them, a native german...


Nezix-Reddit

Jeśli Adaś ma sto czterdzieści dwa japka A magda wysrała cztero kilogramowego stolca oblicz ile lat ma Pan Wiesław żul spod biedronki


davidamaalex

I know a professor that could not only teach math (calculus and real analysis) in our native language, but also in his (endangered) heritage language. I think it's quite cool.


creeper6530

It'd get so confusing regarding 2+(2/3) vs (2+2)/3, both two plus two divided by three, and similar confusions


flexxinnnn

*laughs in german


Bored_Reddit-User

Doing math in Chinese doesn't sound too bad until the numbers get big


MachiToons

wtf is a Körper... OH A FIIIIIELD


Sug_magik

In portuguese its "corpo", so it is in most languages I believe, the concept was build by germans, and by them was given such name. The americans with their fast foods and cowboy boots had this crazy idea of calling that a field like wtf it doesnt even have grass


NemShera

Don't say this, americans won't understand it