Ge'ez numbers

Written in digits, each place is worth ten times the one to its right. Ge'ez cuts a number into groups of two digits instead, counting from the right, and marks what each group is worth. So 2018 is ፳፻ — 20 hundreds — followed by ፲፰, which is 18.

፻ means a hundred and ፼ means ten thousand. They multiply whatever comes before them, and they combine: ፻፼ is a hundred ten-thousands, 1000000. Order decides everything — the same two characters the other way round, ፼፻, is ten thousand and then a hundred, 10100.

9 units, 9 tens and 2 multipliers — 20 in all. There is no character for zero and none for a decimal point. The alphabet page lists the key each one is typed with.

A zero is a placeholder: it is what lets 208 and 28 be different numbers written with the same digits. Ge'ez does not need one, because a group takes its value from the mark after it rather than from its position. A number with no hundreds simply has no hundreds group — ፪፻፰ and ፳፰ — and nothing has to stand in for the gap.

Arabic digits do the everyday arithmetic in Ethiopia — prices, phone numbers, the date on a form. Ge'ez numerals stay where a number is named rather than calculated: chapter and verse in a church text, a year on a masthead, an ordinal in a list, a date written formally. Reading them is the common need, and the box above is for reading.