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Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies
ISSN 0577-9170; DOI 10.6503/THJCS

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On the Relation between Language and Place-Value Notation

Vol. 25 No. 3   12/1995  

Title

On the Relation between Language and Place-Value Notation

Author

Chen Liang-tso

Genre

Article  

Pages

 

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Key words

Language, place-value notation, the characteristic of Chinese

Abstract

      The systematic spoken place-value notations of many peoples in the world are dependent on their linguistic systems, and the systematic spoke number can be regard as a reference model for the systematic spoken place-value notation.

    The Indo-European language is inflectional in character and it’s morphological variation is multifarious. In the Indo-European place-value notation cannot be completed in terms of it’s spoken number.

    Chinese is a kind of monosyllabic and isolating languages, the worlds of which are constituted of finite sound elements. Chinese numerals are composed of numeral number words 1, ...0, ten, hundred, thousand...etc. in a fixed word order. The spoken number in Shang Dynasty and the systematic written number in Chou Dynasty are not of any difference from today’s. Some currency numer als and counting-rod numerals in Warring States Period are completely accordant to today’s abstract decimal place-value notation.

    Chinese place-value notation was circulated in Indian probably in the fourth century A.D.

 

 

Author: Chen Liang-tso
Genre: Article
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