Recently, I found that some people working with Syriac had little idea of how numerals are written in the language, so I wrote a little PDF manual to describe what is only briefly touched upon in the standard grammars.
The manual covers the various forms of numerals used in Syriac: the alphabetic numerals and the various systems of marking higher alphabetic numerals, Eastern Arabic numerals and Aramaic sign–value numerals.
The PDF can be downloaded from http://www.garzo.co.uk/documents/syriac-numerals.pdf.
A priest of the Church of England, who is Chaplain of Hertford College, Oxford, and doing Syriac research at Oxford University.
8 November 2010 at 13:52
Hi Gareth
I need to write the Syriac symbols for ’23, 7, 31 & 5′ for a feature film (think ‘Da Vinci Code’) that we are making in Cape Town. I would be immensely grateful if you could show me what they would look like,
Best,
Tom Hannam
8 November 2010 at 16:46
Hi Tom,
As the article shows, those numbers are written kap-gamal, zai, lamad-alap and he. However, I take it you don’t read Syriac, so I’m not sure how much use Syriac numerals will be to you. Not many people read the language anyway, so I do not see why you would want to use it in a popular medium.
Gareth.
9 November 2010 at 08:06
Hi Gareth
Well, you’re quite right, my Syriac IS rather sketchy! However, I have a scene in the movie where an archeologist discovers the numerals and is able to read them. I could just make up any old rubbish, but I hate doing that and would much rather add as much authenticity as possible, even though the script is risible.. My concern is that, if I try to put the characters together myself, a handful of experts such as yourself will scoff and guffaw!
Best,
Tom
11 November 2010 at 03:08
OK, which type of numerals do you want, or, if you’re not sure, which era are they supposed to represent?
12 March 2020 at 04:56
Thanks for this post. It was quite useful to me.