Arabic numerals Libya to Morocco. Arabs, on the other hand, call the base-10 system (not just these digits) "Hindu numerals", referring to their origin in India. This is not to be confused with what the Arabs call the "Hindi numerals", namely the Eastern Arabic numerals ( - - - - - - - - - ) used in the Middle East, or any of the numerals currently used in Indian languages (e.g. Devanagari: ). The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the printing press, and they became widely known during the 15th century. Early evidence of their
History of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system History of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system The Hindu–Arabic numeral system is a decimal place-value numeral system that uses a zero glyph as in "205". Its glyphs are descended from the Indian Brahmi numerals. The full system emerged by the 8th to 9th centuries, and is first described in Al-Khwarizmi's "On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals" (ca. 825), and Al-Kindi's four-volume work "On the Use of the Indian Numerals" (ca. 830). Today the name "Hindu–Arabic numerals" is usually used. Historians trace modern numerals in most languages to the Brahmi numerals, which were in use around the middle of the 3rd century