Some years ago in Manchester I was attending a English class for foreigners. While waiting for the teacher a Korean or Chinese girl was jotting down some symbols on her notebook. I asked what was she drawing. She answered me that she was just writing the numbers one to nine. She added that it was a popular and informal way for writing numbers in Asia.It was something similar to the west way: I II III but in asian style. The first number was just a stroke, and any new number was formed adding a new stroke. Anybody can show me this informal system? I looked for in the net without any success.
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1korean.stackexchange.com/questions/502/… – dROOOze Dec 26 '18 at 17:41
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Thanks @droooze. Yes you are absolutely right. And if I remember well the girl was Korean not Chinese. – joan Dec 26 '18 at 17:49
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I think you may have misunderstood those answers over at Korean SE. The system that uses 正 as a tally marker is used all over China, Korea, and Japan - see both answers and the Wikipedia and Wiktionary links. – dROOOze Dec 26 '18 at 17:51
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So the correct answer here is that the 正-tally was used? – Mou某♦ Dec 27 '18 at 5:44
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Yes, @user3306356. If I remember correctly what I saw was the 正-tally. I confirmed the Kevin answer. – joan Jan 2 '19 at 13:32
In Chinese people often use the character 正 as tally marks (set of 5). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks
i suspected it's "花碼"
https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/花碼
the unicode has these :)
1 - 〡 (u+3021)
2 - 〢 (u+3022)
3 - 〣 (u+3023)
4 - 〤 (u+3024)
5 - 〥 (u+3025)
6 - 〦 (u+3026)
7 - 〧 (u+3027)
8 - 〨 (u+3028)
9 - 〩 (u+3029)
for zero ( 0 ), just write anything like an "0" (u+0030) or "O" (u+004f), or "o" (u+006f)
these type of "number" is actively used in hong kong till recent decades.
some pages talked about it's usage:
https://www.hk01.com/熱爆話題/52311/紅van集體回憶-〤〥-花碼價錢牌-你知落車俾幾錢
https://lihkg.com/thread/328698/page/1
when i was young, studying in primary school, i needed to learn 0-9 in english, roman numerals, chinese numerals (大寫), and 花碼, at the same time :(
