Soroban as a language
Look at the pictures.
there is an apple on the dish.
there is a glass on the table.
we represent these situations as 1.
In English 1 is pronounced goneh. But Japanese people donft call 1 goneh but gichih because they use Japanese. In Japanese 1 is pronounced gichih.
Of course everyone in the world call 1 in their own language. For example French call it gunh, German do geinsh, Chinese do gyih and so on. In the world numerous languages are existed, and also there are a various way to represent 1 not only in the phonetic way but also in the number symbol.
At the previous case we used g1h to represent. This is the Arabic number symbol. It is the most popular way to represent numbers all over the world now. We can find the Arabic numbers everywhere in the life. For example we use them to solve the mathematic problems in the school, face value on the bill and coin, calendar, clock and so on.
But the Arabic symbol is not an only way to write numbers. Japanese people use not only Arabic number but also Chinese character. It represent 1 as gêh. The Roman numbers are also familiar to us. It represent 1 as gTh.
The world is bigger than we expected. Like there are a various language existed, a various symbol of numbers are also existed.
For example Thai language, it has its own characters to represent numbers. By Thai language 1 is represented 1 like thisg?h. When I came across this character for the first time, I couldnft recognize it as a number. I distinguish it is kind of figure. It looks like g0h and Japanese character gÌh(no) is similar of it , but itfs respectable number of 1.
In the world a large variety of number symbols is observed, there are a large number of ways to represent g1h
I think there is no problem to deal with soroban numbers equally as other kinds of numbers.
Now I will make a list of basic numbers 0-9 by six different characters - Arabic, Chinese , Roman, Thai, soroban, and playing cards.
How do you feel to observe the list? You may wonder why the playing cards are listed as a numbers. But I have a reason to equate them with a number. It is because the marks are systematically placed on the card.
If the mark of cards is placed haphazardly, how do you feel it when you play card.
Glancing the cards below, Can you distinguish the number in a second which each cards shows.
