Arabic numerals milestone in the development of mathematics. One may distinguish between this positional "system", which is identical throughout the family, and the precise glyphs used to write the numerals, which varied regionally. The first universally accepted inscription containing the use of the 0 glyph in India is first recorded in the 9th century, in an inscription at Gwalior in Central India dated to 870. Numerous Indian documents on copper plates exist, with the same symbol for zero in them, dated back as far as the 6th century AD, but their dates are uncertain. Inscriptions in Indonesia and Cambodia dating to AD
Roman numerals Capital or small capital Roman numerals are widely used in Romance languages to denote , e.g. the French ' and the Spanish ' mean "18th century". Slavic languages in and adjacent to Russia similarly favour Roman numerals (). On the other hand, in Slavic languages in Central Europe, like most Germanic languages, one writes "18." (with a period) before the local word for "century". Mixed Roman and Arabic numerals are sometimes used in numeric representations of dates (especially in formal letters and official documents, but also on tombstones). The is written in Roman numerals, while the day is in Arabic