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Comment by tribune | Hacker News Reader

It's hinted at in the article, but it's worth noting that Mandarin Chinese numbers are much simpler than their counterparts in most other languages. 1-10 are all monosyllabic and the system thereafter is pretty regular. Numbers are not as much of a mouthful as they are in English and probably easier to commit to memory.

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That's an oft proferred explanation, but I've encountered some evidence that it could be a habit of the mind.

English is my native language and I can remember longish sequences of numbers easily.

My American friends can too but many don't see the point. Their education system is so against rote memorization that there's a cultural aversion to casual memorization because one can always "look it up".

Another example is the number of days in the month. I instinctively know which months are 30 days, 31 days or 28/29 days. Many Americans don't see the point of having this information at their fingertips. It's a fascinating cultural difference.

There is one polysyllabic number from 1-10 in English (7). There are 2 3-syllable numbers from 11-20 (11, 17). After that everything is 2 or 3 syllables (X7s excluded) until 100. IDK man, doesn't seem like that much of a mouthful.

Monosyllabic isn't quite precise enough. It's more than all the Chinese digits are CV only whereas in English, only 1 is (two).

By monosyllabic he meant one short syllable only, or "mora":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)

Eight, for example is one syllable with two moras, the "eigh" sound and the "t" sound at the end.

Same for Zero, which as "Ze" and "Ro" separated into two moras.

Nine, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, for example are one mora words.

Six actually has 3 mora, with "Si" at the beginning and the X at the end having two mora "k" and "s" sound.

In comparison all Chinese characters have one mora only, thus it's much faster and easier to use in numbers.

A valid point, but that's not what he literally said. We're all being pedantic here (nothing wrong with that, we're discussing linguistics after all).

I was just pointing out that he's literally wrong, and if that's what he meant he should be more clear in his phrasing.

The Hindu–Arabic numerals are monosyllabic in most Indian languages (e.g. Hindi, Bengali, etc.) as well

You can just call them Indian numbers. "Arabic" didn't contribute anything to the number system except using them.

Calling them as "Arabic" numbers is as dated as words like "Orientals", "Indians" to refer to native Americans, etc.,

According to whom? I've never heard of this though before. Are you saying the Persians didn't add value and therefor don't deserve credit?

This is a legitimate question. I've always heard them called Hindu/Indian-Arab Numerals, and I've never heard of complaints about this before this thread.

I'm just trying to find out who this is offending or why it's problematic phrasing.

Just the fact that you are conflating persian and "arabic" words makes me chuckle.

They are quite different, even if they are close geographically. Ask a an actual Iranian/Perisan if they would like to mistaken for a Saudi/Arabic.

You say this like I made these cultural choices on how to name these things.

I'm not conflation "Persian" with "Arabic". I wouldn't call an Iranian a Saudi anymore than I'd call an Indian a Pakistani. But the widespread adoption of the numbers and their naming happened during times when people modern nomenclature hadn't taken hold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_s...

I didn't write this article, so I'm not the only person in the world making these assumptions. I understand that there are some weird problematic names that still exist for common objects, but this is genuinely something I'd just assumed most people accepted as the name, especially in the West.

They're Indian, true. Well, the world is like that - thus Boyer's law:

"Mathematical formulas and theorems are usually not named after their original discoverers"

and Stigler's law of eponymy: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy

simplicity might help, but after years of learning mathematics on the side... I think the most damaging part is done through teachers and teaching process. It makes people suffering by trying to understand the finger rather than enjoy the moon.

GP is making a reference to the fact that Chinese students were found able to hold 2 more digits in memory than American or Japanese students. The theory is that everyone has a certain amount of short-term verbal memory, and using really short pronunciation for numbers means you can cram in extra digits into that verbal memory.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027786...

And I strongly believe that, as much as tapping into neurological structures is beneficial and important, mathematics is mostly about overcoming them and thinking in the large.

If I could explain that, I don't feel my brain is stronger now that I know about combinatorics over program spaces / trees compared to me a 6. It's just how things are approached that changes everything.

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