RE: Arabic numbers

["Fahmi Gnet" <fahmi dot hachicha at gnet dot tn>]

Hello,

In Tunisia, which is a country of North Africa, the first language is Arabic, the second language is French and the third language is English. 

Not like, the Middle east Arabic countries, although we use arabic as first language (Mother language), we use always the arbic numbers (0123456789) in the use of the three languages (ar / fr / en).

So, childs began to learn arbic numbers and they never learn indian numbers.

I suggest the use of the locale in addition to the language : as for Tunisia "ar-tn".

Hope that can help.
Fahmi Hachicha
 
-----Original Message-----
From: unicode-bounce at unicode dot org [mailto:unicode-bounce at unicode dot org]On
Behalf Of James Tu
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 11:15 PM
To: unicode at unicode dot org
Subject: Arabic numbers


I apologize if this is slightly off topic...

We are working on a kid's website that targets 5 languages and one of  
them is Arabic.  We were wondering whether we should be using   
0123456789 (arabic numbers) vs ٠١٢٣٤٣٥٦٧٨٩ (indian numbers,  
I found out that the real Arabic numbers are called indian  
numbers. :)  )  This will mostly be used when a user is entering and  
ID number to log into the site.

On an Arabic keyboard, there is the 'normal' row of arabic numbers  
0123456789.  But on the same keys they have the corresponding indian  
numbers, used for Arabic.
Can anyone help me understand the usage pattern for Arabic speakers  
with these hybrid keyboards.  (supposedly, some people doing research  
found that kids learn Indian numbers and then start using Arabic  
0123456789 numbers later)
- When an Arabic speaker uses their computer and when she types  
numbers, does the operating system default to 0123456789, or does it  
default to Arabic numbers?

How 'bad' would it be if we required that kids use 0123456789?

-James