Because it was surprisingly complicated to google for this piece of information I'm going to note it down in my public 'journal' aka. notebook aka. blog aka. whatever page.
If you're watching a movie or reading something translated from Japanese you may encounter nubmers written in a way that doesn't alling with what you'll find when just googling 'japanese numbering system' or 'japanese numbers' that look like a string out of these five characters: 𝍲, 𝍳, 𝍴, 𝍵, 𝍶.
That is because they are not actually Japanese numbers (see below) at all but a so called "tally mark" (an "Ideographic Tally Mark" to be precise) that get used in China as well as Japan (and some other places). The character 𝍶 itself represents 5. There are other 'base 5' counting (or better writing) systems:
- In Europe, Anglosphere, and Southern Africa (note, technically these are the wrong unicode characters, but the correct ones didn't appear to work as they should, so...): 𝍩, 𝍪, 𝍫, 𝍬, and 𝍸
- In Franc, Portugal, Spain, their (former) colonies (including Latin America) as well within some card games this system gets used (I didn't find official unicode characters for them, so I'm going to use different but similarly looking ones): 𝍩, Γ, Π, ☐, ⍂
- In forestry and some other fields a similar system is used. It however is kinda odd because it isn't truly base-5 nor base-10, but kinda a mix of both. It is commonly refered to as either "dot and line tally" or "dot-dash tally". There are currently no unicode characters for it. Therefore here is an image (created by Pinethicket):
- (Cultures using the Chinese characters (or that have imported or derived from it) already know these, as that's where this system originated from)
Some even have fractions. However they are easily confusable for just a 2nd line of numbers as they are represented by writing two of them on top of each other. On computers this can be done by writing the fraction slash character "U+2044" in between the two numbers. This should (didn't correctly for the counting rod numbers when testing) move the first number on top of the 2nd one (and for hindu-arabic numers it should write them as e.g. "1/2" but within one symbol).
The symbol for negative numbers is represented by prefixing the rod numberals with the reverse solidus overlay "U+20E5".
Japanese Numbers
Source: Wikipedia (Japanese_numerals)
| Number | Character | Onreading | Kunreading[1] | Preferred reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 零/〇* | rei /れい | maru /まる | zero /ゼロ(loanword,gairaigo) |
| 1 | 一 | ichi / いち | hito(tsu) / ひと・つ | ichi |
| 2 | 二 | ni / に | futa(tsu) / ふた・つ | ni |
| 3 | 三 | san / さん | mit(tsu) / みっ・つ | san |
| 4 | 四 | shi / し | yon, yot(tsu) / よん、よっ・つ | yon |
| 5 | 五 | go / ご | itsu(tsu) / いつ・つ | go |
| 6 | 六 | roku / ろく | mut(tsu) / むっ・つ | roku |
| 7 | 七 | shichi / しち | nana(tsu) / なな・つ | nana |
| 8 | 八 | hachi / はち | yat(tsu) / やっ・つ | hachi |
| 9 | 九 | ku, kyū/ く, きゅう | kokono(tsu) / ここの・つ | kyū |
| 10 | 十 | jū / じゅう | tō / とお | jū |
| 20 | 二十 | ni-jū / にじゅう | (hata / はた)† | ni-jū |
| 30 | 三十 | san-jū / さんじゅう | (miso / みそ)† | san-jū |
| 40 | 四十 | shi-jū / しじゅう | (yoso / よそ)† | yon-jū |
| 50 | 五十 | go-jū / ごじゅう | (iso / いそ)† | go-jū |
| 60 | 六十 | roku-jū / ろくじゅう | (muso / むそ)† | roku-jū |
| 70 | 七十 | shichi-jū / しちじゅう | (nanaso / ななそ)† | nana-jū |
| 80 | 八十 | hachi-jū / はちじゅう | (yaso / やそ)† | hachi-jū |
| 90 | 九十 | ku-jū / くじゅう | (kokonoso / ここのそ)† | kyū-jū |
| 100 | 百 | hyaku / ひゃく | (momo / もも)† | hyaku |
| 500 | 五百 | go-hyaku / ごひゃく | (io / いお)† | go-hyaku |
| 800 | 八百 | hap-pyaku / はっぴゃく | (yao / やお)† | hap-pyaku |
| 1,000 | 千 | sen / せん | (chi / ち)† | sen |
| 10,000 | 万 | man / まん | (yorozu / よろず)† | man |
| 100,000,000 | 億 | oku / おく | — | oku |
| 1,000,000,000,000 | 兆 | chō / ちょう | — | chō |
| 10,000,000,000,000,000 | 京 | kei / けい | — | kei |