Arabic numerals in its entry in the "Oxford English Dictionary", which helps to distinguish it from "Arabic numerals" as the Eastern Arabic numerals. Alternative names are Western Arabic numerals, Western numerals, Hindu–Arabic numerals and Unicode calls them digits. The decimal Hindu–Arabic numeral system with zero was developed in India by around AD 700. The development was gradual, spanning several centuries, but the decisive step was probably provided by Brahmagupta's formulation of zero as a number in AD 628. The system was revolutionary by including zero in positional notation, thereby limiting the number of individual digits to ten. It is considered an important
Arabic numeral variations Arabic numeral variations There are various stylistic and typographic variations to the Arabic numeral system. The numerals used by Western countries have two forms: "lining" ("in-line" or "full-height") figures as seen on a typewriter and taught in North America, and "old-style" figures, in which numerals 0, 1 and 2 are at x-height; numerals 6 and 8 have bowls within x-height, and ascenders; numerals 3, 5, 7 and 9 have descenders from x-height; and the numeral 4 rests along the baseline. British presses have been partial to "old-style" numerals, even though typewriters cannot print them and they are not assigned corresponding