Old Slavonic alphabet with numbers. Cyrillic number system

Hello. In this episode of the TranslatorsCafe.com channel we will talk about numbers. We will consider various systems numbering and classification of numbers, and also discuss interesting facts about numbers. A number is an abstract mathematical concept denoting quantity. Numbers have been used by humans for counting since ancient times. At first, numbers were indicated by counting sticks, or notches, or lines on wood or bone. Later, numbers began to be used in more abstract systems. There are many ways to express and work with numbers; We'll look at some of them a little later in this video. Number systems have evolved over many centuries. Some ancient systems have been replaced by others that are more convenient to use. Some systems, which we will talk about below, are no longer used. Scientists believe that the concept of number arose independently in different cultures. Symbols for representing numbers in writing also arose separately in each culture. Gradually, with the development of trade, people began to exchange ideas and borrow from each other the principles of counting or writing numbers. Therefore, the number systems that we now use were created by many peoples. The Arabic number system is one of the most widely used systems. It was borrowed from India and refined by Persian and Arab mathematicians. During the Middle Ages, this system spread to Europe through trade and replaced Roman numerals. European colonization also influenced the spread of Arabic numerals. In Europe, Arabic numerals were first used in monasteries and later in secular society. The Arabic system is decimal, that is, with a base of 10. It uses ten symbols that can express all possible numbers. Ten is one of the most widely used numbers in counting systems, and the decimal system is common in many countries. This is due to the fact that since ancient times people have used ten fingers on their hands to count. To this day, people who learn to count or want to illustrate an example related to counting use their fingers. There are even such expressions as “counting on your fingers.” Some cultures also used their toes, knuckles, and even the space between their fingers to count. Interestingly, in many languages ​​word, denoting fingers and numbers are the same thing. For example, in English, this word is “digit”. Roman numerals were used in Ancient Rome and Europe until about the 14th century. They are still used in some cases, such as on watch dials. You can also find them in the names of the Pope. Roman numerals are also often used in the names of recurring events, such as the Olympic Games. The Roman numeral system uses the seven letters of the Roman alphabet to represent all possible combinations of numbers: The order in which the numbers are written in the Roman numeral system matters. A larger number to the left of a smaller one means that both numbers must be added. On the other hand, the smaller number to the left of the larger one should be subtracted from the larger number. For example, this number is eleven, and this is 9. This rule is not universal and only applies to numbers of type: IV (4), IX (9), XL (40), XC (90), CD (400) and CM (900). In some cases these rules are not followed and the numbers are written in a row, such as this number meaning 50. The inscription in Latin using Roman numerals on Admiralty Arch in London reads: In the tenth year of the reign of King Edward VII to Queen Victoria from grateful citizens, 1910 Many cultures used number systems similar to Roman and Arabic. For example, in the Cyrillic number system, numbers from one to nine, ten, and multiples of one hundred were written in Cyrillic letters. There were also signs for larger numbers. There was also a special sign, similar to a tilde, which was written above such numbers to show that these were not letters. There was a similar system using the Glagolitic alphabet. In the Hebrew number system, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were used to write numbers from one to ten, multiples of ten, as well as one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, and four hundred. The remaining numbers were written as the sum or product of these numbers. The Greek number system is also similar to the systems above. Some cultures had simpler number systems. For example, Babylonian numerals could be written using just two cuneiform signs, representing one and ten. The sign for the unit is similar to capital letter "T", and ten - with the letter "S". So, for example, 32 can be written like this, using the appropriate cuneiform characters. The Egyptian number system is similar, only it also had symbols for zero, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand and million, and also had special signs for writing fractions. Mayan numbers were written using the symbols for zero, one and five. Numbers above nineteen also had a unique spelling. They used the signs for one and five, but with a different arrangement to show that the meaning of these numbers was different. In the unit or unary number system, only one sign is used to indicate one. Each number is written using such signs, the number of which is equal to this number. For example, if such a sign is the letter “A”, then the number five can be written as five letters A in a row. The unary system is often used by teachers who teach children to count because it helps children understand the relationship between the number of objects, such as counting sticks or pencils, and the more abstract concept of number. Often the unary system is used during games to record the points scored by teams or to count days or items. In addition to simple counting and accounting, the unary system is also used in computer technology and electronics. Moreover, the recording method differs in different cultures. For example, in many countries of Europe and America, they usually write four vertical lines one after another, which on the count of “five” are crossed out with a horizontal or diagonal line, and continue counting with a new group of lines. Here the count reaches four, after which these lines are crossed out with a fifth. Then add five more lines, and again start a new row. In countries where Chinese characters are or have been used in the language, for example in China, Japan and Korea, people usually draw not four lines crossed out by a fifth, but a special character, but also made of five strokes. The sequence of these strokes is not arbitrary, but is established by the rules of spelling hieroglyphs. In our example, the count reaches five and the person writes the first two strokes of the next hieroglyph, ending the count at seven. Now we will look at positional number systems. In positional number systems, the meaning of each sign denoting a digit depends on its position in the number. The position is usually called rank. This value also depends on the base of the number system. For example, the number 101 in binary is not equal to one hundred and one in decimal. Let's consider the positional number system using the decimal example: The first digit is for units, that is, numbers from zero to nine. The first digit is multiplied by ten to the zero power, that is, by one. The second digit is for tens and the digit in the second digit is multiplied by ten to the first power, that is, 10. The third digit is for hundreds and the digit in the third digit is multiplied by ten to the second power, and so on until the digits run out. To get the value of a number, we add up all the numbers obtained above, that is, the values ​​of the numbers in each digit. This way of writing numbers allows you to work with large numbers. Numbers do not take up as much space in the text compared to numbers in non-positional number systems. The binary system is widely used in mathematics and computer science. All possible numbers are represented in it using just two digits, “0” and “1”, although in some cases other signs are used, for example “+”, “–”. Numbers in the binary system are represented as binary zeros and ones. To represent numbers greater than one, addition rules are used. Addition in the binary system is based on the same principle as in the decimal system. To add one to a number, use the following rule: For numbers ending in zero, this last zero is replaced by one. For example, let's add 1-0-0, that is, 4 in the decimal system, and 1, that is, 1 in the decimal system. We get 1-0-1, that is, 5. Here and below, for comparison, examples are given with the same numbers in the decimal system. In a number ending in one, but not consisting only of ones, replace the first zero on the right with one. All ones following it, that is, to the right of it, are replaced with zeros. Let's add 1-0-1-1, that is, 11 and 1, that is, 1 in decimal. We get 1-1-0-0. In a number consisting of only ones, all ones are replaced with zeros, and one is added at the beginning, that is, to the left. For example, let's add 1-1-1, that is, 7 and 1. We get 1-0-0-0, that is, 8. It should be noted that arithmetic operations in the binary system are done in exactly the same way as the usual operations in a column in decimal system the only difference is that instead of 10 they use 2. When adding, both numbers are written one below the other, as in decimal addition. The rules are as follows: 0+0=0 1+0=1 1+1=10. In this case, 0 is written in the right digit and 1 is transferred to the next digit. Now let's try adding 1-1-1-1-1 and 1-0-1-1. When adding in a column from right to left, we get: 1+1=0, and the unit is transferred to the next digit 1+1+1=1, and the unit is transferred to the next digit 1+1=0, the unit is transferred to the next digit 1+1+1 =1, and again we transfer the unit to the next digit 1+1=10 That is, we get 1-0-1-0-1-0. Subtraction is similar to addition, but instead of carrying, on the contrary, they “take” one from the higher digits. Multiplication is also similar to decimal. The result of multiplying two units is one, and multiplying by zero gives zero. If you look closely, you can see that all operations come down to addition and shifts. This feature of the binary system is widely used in computer systems. Dividing and taking square roots is also not much different from working with decimals. Numbers are grouped into classes, and some numbers can be in more than one class at the same time. Negative numbers indicate a negative value. They are preceded by a minus sign to distinguish them from positive ones. For example, if a person owes the bank that issued the credit card fifty thousand rubles, then he has −50,000 rubles. Here –50000 is a negative number. Natural numbers these are zero and positive integers. For example, 7 and 86,766 are natural numbers. Whole numbers are zero, negative and positive numbers that are not fractions. For example, −65 and 11,223 are integers. Rational numbers are those numbers that can be expressed as a fraction where the denominator is a positive natural number and the numerator is a whole number. For example, 3/4 or −10/5, that is, −2, are rational numbers. Complex numbers are obtained by adding a real, that is, not a complex number, and another real number multiplied by an imaginary unit i, for which the equality i^2 = –1 holds. That is, a complex number is a number of the form a + bi. Here a is the real part of the complex number and b is its imaginary part. It is worth noting here that in electrical engineering the letter j is used instead of i, since the letter I denotes current - to avoid confusion. Prime numbers are natural numbers, greater than one, that are divisible without remainder only by one and by themselves. Examples prime numbers these are: 3, 5 and 11. 2^57,885,161−1 is the largest prime number known as of February 2013. It contains 17,425,170 digits. Prime numbers are used in public key cryptosystems. This type of coding is used in encrypting electronic information in cases where it is necessary to ensure information security, for example, on the websites of online stores, electronic wallets and banks. Now let's talk about some interesting features of numbers. In China, they use a separate form of recording numbers for business and financial transactions. The usual hieroglyphs used to name numbers are too simple. They are easy to counterfeit or alter, changing their denomination if you add just a few touches to them. Therefore, special, more complex hieroglyphs are usually used on bank checks and other financial documents. In the languages ​​of countries where the decimal number system is adopted, words are still preserved that indicate that a system with a different base was previously used there. For example, in English the word “dozen” is still used to mean twelve. In many English-speaking countries, eggs, flour products, wine and flowers are counted and sold in dozens. And in the Khmer language there are words for counting fruits based on the base-20 system. In the West, as well as in many countries where Christianity is practiced, 13 is considered an unlucky number. Historians believe it is related to Christianity and Judaism. According to the Bible, exactly thirteen disciples of Jesus were present at the Last Supper, and the thirteenth, Judas, later betrayed Christ. The Vikings also had a belief that when thirteen people get together, one of them will definitely die in the next year. In countries where Russian is spoken, even numbers are considered unlucky. It probably has to do with beliefs. ancient Slavs who believed that even numbers are static, motionless, and therefore dead. The odd ones, on the contrary, are mobile, looking for additions, changing, and therefore alive. That's why even number Flowers are brought only to funerals, but not given to living people. IN Western world On the contrary, it is quite normal to give an even number, and flowers are often counted in dozens. In China, Korea and Japan they do not like the number 4 because it is consonant with the word “death”. Often, not only the number four itself is avoided, but also the numbers containing it. For example, 4, 14, 24, and other similar numbers are often missed in the numbering of floors and apartments. In China they also don't like the number 7, due to the fact that the seventh month in the Chinese calendar is the month of spirits. It is believed that during this month the border between the human world and the spirit world disappears, and spirits come to visit people. The number 9 is considered unlucky in Japan because it connotes the word "suffering." The unlucky number in Italy is 17 because its spelling in Roman numerals can be rewritten as "VIXI" by reversing the order of the letters. Often this phrase was written on the graves of the ancient Romans and meant “I lived”, therefore it is associated with the end of life and with death. 666 is a well-known unlucky number, also called the “number of the beast” in the Bible. Some believe that the actual number of the beast is 616, but references to 666 are more common. Many believe that this number will designate the Antichrist, that is, the deputy of the devil. Therefore, this number is sometimes associated with the devil himself. The origin of this number is unknown, but some are convinced that 666 and 616 are the encrypted names of the Roman Emperor Nero in Hebrew and Latin languages respectively, expressed in numbers. This possibility does exist, since Nero is known for his persecution of Christians and his bloody reign. Some historians even believe that it was Nero who initiated the great fire of Rome, although many historians do not agree with this interpretation of events. Thank you for your attention! If you liked this video, please don't forget to subscribe to our channel!

Old Slavonic number system

In the Middle Ages, in the lands where the Slavs lived, they used the Cyrillic alphabet, and a system of writing numbers based on this alphabet was widespread. Indian numerals appeared in 1611. By that time, Slavic numbering was used, consisting of 27 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. Above the letters, denoting numbers, a mark was placed - a title. IN early XVIII V. as a result of the reform introduced by Peter I, Indian numbers and the Indian number system supplanted Slavic numbering from use, although in Russian Orthodox Church(in books) it is used to this day. Cyrillic numerals originate from Greek ones. In form, these are ordinary letters of the alphabet with special marks indicating their numerical reading. The Greek and Old Slavonic ways of writing numbers had much in common, but there were also differences. The first Russian monument mathematical content The handwritten work of the Novgorod monk Kirik, written by him in 1136, is still considered. In this work, Kirik showed himself to be a very skillful counter and a great lover of numbers. The main tasks that Kirik considers are: chronological order: calculation of time, flow between any events. When making calculations, Kirik used a numbering system called a small list and expressed in the following terms:

10000 – darkness

100,000 – legion

In addition to the small list, Ancient Rus' There was also a large list that made it possible to operate with very large numbers. In the system of a large list of basic digit units had the same names as in small, but the relationship between these units was different, namely:

a thousand thousand is darkness,

darkness to darkness is legion,

legion of legions - leodr,

leodr leodriv - raven,

10 ravens - a log.

About the last of these numbers, that is, about the log, it was said: “And more than this to carry to the human mind understand." Units, tens and hundreds were depicted Slavic letters with a ~ sign placed above them, called “titlo”, to distinguish numbers from letters. Darkness, legion and leodr were depicted with the same letters, but to distinguish them from units, tens, hundreds and thousand, they were circled. With numerous fractions of one hour, Kirik introduced his system of fractional units, and he called the fifth part the second hour, the twenty-fifth - three hours, the one hundred and twenty-fifth - four hours, etc. The smallest fraction he had was seven hours, and he believed that there can no longer be smaller fractions of hours: “This does not happen anymore, there are no seventh fractions, of which there will be 987,500 in days.” When making calculations, Kirik did the operations of addition and multiplication, and distribution, in all likelihood, he carried out shlyakhompidbora, considering successive multiples for a given dividend and divisor. Kirik made the main chronological calculations from the date that was accepted in Ancient Rus' as the date of the creation of the world. Calculating the moment of writing his work in this way, Kirik (with an error of 24 months) claims that 79,728 months have passed since the creation of the world, or 200 unknown and 90 unknown and 1 unknown and 652 hours. By the same kind of calculation, Kirik determines his age, and we learn that he was born in 1110. Operating with fractional hours, Kirik was essentially dealing with a geometric progression with a denominator of 5. In Kirik’s work, space is also given to the issue of calculating Easter, so important for clergy and being one of the most difficult arithmetic questions the ministers of the church had to solve. If Kirik does not give general methods for this kind of calculations, then in any case he shows his ability to do them. Kirik's handwritten work is the only mathematical document that has come down to us from those distant times. However, this does not mean that others mathematical products did not exist in Rus' at that time. It must be assumed that many manuscripts are lost to us due to the fact that they were lost during the troubled years of princely civil strife, were destroyed in fires, and were always accompanied by raids neighboring peoples to Rus'.

Let's write the numbers 23 and 444 in the Slavic number system.

We see that the entry is no longer than our decimal. This is because alphabetic systems used at least 27 "digits". But these systems were convenient only for writing numbers up to 1000. True, the Slavs, like the Greeks, knew how to write numbers greater than 1000. For this, new notations were added to the alphabetic system. So, for example, the numbers 1000, 2000, 3000... were written in the same “digits” as 1, 2, 3..., only a special sign was placed in front of the “digit” at the bottom left. The number 10000 was denoted by the same letter as 1, only without a title, it was circled. This number was called “darkness”. This is where the expression “darkness to the people” comes from.

Thus, to denote "topics" ( plural from the word darkness) the first 9 “digits” were circled.

10 topics, or 100,000, was the highest level unit. They called it "legion". 10 legions made up the leord. The largest of the quantities that have their own designation was called “deck”; it was equal to 1050. It was believed that “the human mind cannot comprehend more than this.” This method of writing numbers, as in the alphabetic system, can be considered as the beginnings of a positional system, since in it the same symbols were used to designate units of different digits, to which only special signs were added to determine the value of the digit. Alphabetic number systems were not very suitable for handling large numbers. During development human society these systems gave way to positional systems.

Main features of writing numbers in Cyrillic

It should be remembered that the letters of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet had not only a sound, but also a numerical value. In cases where it was necessary to indicate a number in written monuments, letters with additional superscripts were used. A sign was placed above the letter title(~ ), and on both sides there are dots. For example: B- 2+ ; MÅ - 45; JÎÃ - 773; # ÄFÏÈ - 4588.

Particular attention should be paid to the transmission of numbers in ancient texts from eleven to nineteen. The very form of these words suggests that units should be written first, and then tens: one-on- twenty(one in ten) two-on- twenty(two by ten) ... nine-on- twenty(nine by ten):

In the alphabet there was special sign to indicate a thousand - #, which was placed to the left of the letter: # A - 1000; # B - 2000; # G - 3000, etc.

Letters B, F, h, Ш, m, b, ы, b, h, у, ", @, \, #, > had no numerical value, since they were absent in the Byzantine uncial.

Task 3. Set which numeric value had the following letters and combinations of Cyrillic letters: A, B, I, ², KV, ME, B², Ȳ, RLD, # ARLD, # VFNV.

Exercise4. Translate an excerpt from the Zograf Gospel (XI century), pay attention to the transfer of numerical values ​​using counting words and Cyrillic letters:

Chlovhk eter bh rich. Even if your guardian was slandered, he was slandered and wasted, take him away. i invite and speak to him. What have I heard about you? Give me an answer about the appointment of the housekeeper. the steward of the house spoke to himself. Why did my lord take away the building of the house from me? I couldn't dig @. xl@pati shame@ s#///. wow, what's the matter? always removed from the building. pri@nt m# to your own houses. and calling one debtor to his master. The verb is pr'voumou. How many duties are you, master of yours? he also speaks rm mhr olha. he also spoke with your other letters. I will soon write n in the same way to another speech. You have a lot of duties. He also said to eat wheat bark. verb emou. accept your letter and write about . I praise the lord domou ikonom of the unrighteous. hko m$$$$@drh create hko son this.

Phonetics Basic patterns of the Old Church Slavonic language

The main features of the structure of the syllable of the Old Church Slavonic language reflect the features of the Proto-Slavic syllable, which, according to most researchers, was the main phonetic unit along with the phoneme.

Law of the open syllable involves the arrangement of sounds in a syllable according to the principle of increasing sonority (from less sonorous to more sonorous):

Sound processes associated with the action of the open syllable law:

1) the disappearance of final consonants in the word form: st.-sl. guest, *gostis.

2) development of prosthetic consonants: Art.-Sl. otter, other ind. udráh.

3) simplification of consonant combinations (see table on page 17).

5) change of diphthongs: st.-sl. dht# - doiti, kovati - kou\.

change in diphthong combinations: v.-sl. im# - name, klati - count\.

Law of syllabic synharmony assumes that the sounds in a syllable should be homogeneous in articulation, close in place of formation:

Sound processes associated with the action of the law of syllabic synharmony:

1) palatalization of back-lingual consonants: st.-sl. soushiti, trotsi, about #zati.

2) change of consonant groups before front vowels: st.-sl. remi (*re kti), moshti (*mo gti), color (* kvě tъ).

3) combination of consonants with *j: (see table on page 15)

Task 5. Divide the given words into syllables, prove their compliance or non-compliance with the basic laws of the Proto-Slavic language:

resurrected, scratched, sent, liturgists", lawyer, genvar, Lord.

Task 6. Divide the words below into syllables, prove the presence or absence of smooth syllables in the words. Indicate the number of letters and sounds in each word, characterize them:

sorry, scream, cry (full), zrno, cry, long, zlt, blah, prv, worm, lie, cry, blood, lie, tear, tremble, drozst, lie, region, enmity.

Sample assignment: trag, blah. In order to prove the syllabic-forming nature of a sonorant smooth, it is necessary to select the appropriate word form of the Russian language. So, comparing the spelling of Art.-Sl. T ръ g and Russian. Top G, we observe a discrepancy in the order of the letters: the Old Slavonic combination -ръ- corresponds to the combination - op- in the Russian language (the vowel sounds before the smooth one), which indicates the syllabic nature of the smooth [r] in the Old Church Slavonic word trъгъ, the letter ъ in this case does not indicate a sound, but serves only as an indicator of the syllabicity of the smooth one and the boundary of the syllable - trъ-гъ. Thus, this word has 5 letters and 4 sounds. In word forms b l ha and blo Ha Old Church Slavonic and Russian languages ​​observe the same order of letters (smooth + vowel: - lъ- and - lo-), which indicates the non-syllabic nature of the smooth [l] in the Old Church Slavonic word, the ability of the letter ъ to denote a sound and form the syllable - bъ-kha. This word has 5 letters and 5 sounds.

Task 7. Comparing the words below, indicate in which modern Slavic languages smooth syllabic formations have been preserved:

other Russian Garlo, Czech hrdlo, Serbohorvian g``r lo, Polish. gardło; Russian death, Czech smrt; Russian bargaining, Czech trh, Serbohorvian t``r g; Russian wave, Czech vlna; Russian hump, Czech hrb, Slovenian grb; Russian wolf, Czech vlk, Serbohorv. wuk (from vlk), Polish. wilk.

Here we use numbers for various calculations. Some people know, but some people don’t really think about it - where did these squiggles come from, who invented them. Well, those that we now mainly use in everyday life - they came from Arab world. That's what they are called - Arabic numerals. There are also Roman numerals. Those are used little, well, in the numbering of a chapter or paragraph of some kind.

But these are not the only options. After all, there are numberings like the Egyptian hieroglyphic, they are Phoenician, Syrian, Palmyra, Greek. After all, every nation-language has its own numbers. So the question arose: How did our Russian ancestors write down the numbers?

Slavic numbers, numbers of Old Russian counting, in which each of the integers from 1 to 9, as well as tens and hundreds, were designated by letters Slavic alphabet with a sign written above them - (title). Integers up to 999 were formed using adjacent Slavic numbers For example, = 324. Here = 300, = 20, = 4. Thousands were designated using a prefix to a figure expressing the number of thousands of a certain sign.

There is also this article:

How to read years written in Slavic letters

Until the beginning of the 18th century, the year was indicated by Slavic letters. The numbers are written from left to right in descending order. The exception is numbers from 11 to 19, which are written as they are pronounced, i.e. first the smaller number, and then the designation of the number 10. For example, twelve is two by twenty, i.e. two by ten, first 2 is written, then 10. In order for the numbers to differ from the text, a title sign (҃) is drawn above them. In order to determine the year, you need to add up all the digits in the number.

To indicate thousands, a sign was placed before the letter (&

Slavic numbers were used for counting and recording. This counting system used symbols in sequential alphabetical order. In many ways it is similar to the Greek system of writing numerical symbols. Slavic numbers are the designation of numbers using letters of ancient alphabets -

Title - special designation

Many ancient peoples used letters from their alphabets to write numbers. The Slavs were no exception. They denoted Slavic numbers with letters from the Cyrillic alphabet.

In order to distinguish a letter from a number, a special icon was used - a title. All Slavic numbers had it above the letter. The symbol is written at the top and represents wavy line. As an example, the image of the first three numbers in the Old Slavonic notation is given.

This sign is also used in other ancient counting systems. It only changes its shape slightly. Initially, this type of designation came from Cyril and Methodius, since they developed our alphabet based on the Greek. The title was written both with more rounded edges and with sharp ones. Both options were considered correct and were used everywhere.

Features of number designation

The designation of numbers on the letter occurred from left to right. The exception was the numbers from "11" to "19". They were written from right to left. Historically, this has been preserved in the names of modern numerals ( one-by-twenty, two-by-twenty etc., that is, the first is the letter denoting units, the second is tens). Each letter of the alphabet represented numbers from 1 to 9, from 10 to 100 to 900.

Not all letters of the Slavic alphabet were used to represent numbers. Thus, “F” and “B” were not used for numbering. They simply were not in the Greek alphabet, which was adopted as a model). Also, the countdown began from one, and not from the usual zero.

Sometimes used on coins mixed system designations for numbers are from the Cyrillic alphabet and Most often, only lowercase letters were used.

When Slavic symbols numbers from the alphabet represent numbers, some of them change their configuration. For example, the letter "i" in this case is written without a dot with the sign "title" and means 10. The number 400 could be written in two ways, depending on geographical location monastery Thus, in the Old Russian printed chronicles the use of the letter “ika” is typical for this figure, and in the Old Ukrainian ones - “Izhitsy”.

What are Slavic numbers?

Our ancestors used special notations to write dates and necessary numbers in chronicles, documents, coins, and letters. Complex numbers up to 999 were denoted by several letters in a row under the general sign “titlo”. For example, 743 on the letter was indicated by the following letters:

• Z (earth) - "7";
• D (good) - "4";
• G (verb) - "3".

All these letters were united under a common icon.

Slavic numbers that denoted 1000 were written with a special sign ҂. It was placed in front of the desired letter with a title. If it was necessary to write a numeral greater than 10,000, special characters were used:

• "Az" in a circle - 10,000 (darkness);
• "Az" in a circle of dots - 100,000 (legion);
• "Az" in a circle consisting of commas - 1,000,000 (leodr).

A letter with the required digital value is placed in these circles.

Examples of using Slavic numerals

This designation could be found in documentation and on ancient coins. The first such numbers can be seen on Peter's silver coins in 1699. They were minted with this designation for 23 years. These coins are now considered rarities and are highly valued among collectors.

Symbols have been stamped on gold coins for 6 years, since 1701. Copper coins with Slavic numerals were in use from 1700 to 1721.

In ancient times, the church had a huge influence on politics and the life of society as a whole. Church Slavonic numerals were also used to record orders and chronicles. They were designated in writing according to the same principle.

Children were also educated in churches. Therefore, the children learned spelling and counting precisely from publications and chronicles using Church Slavonic letters and numbers. This training was quite difficult, since the designation large numbers a few letters just had to be learned by heart.

All sovereign decrees were also written using Slavic numbers. Clerks of that time were required not only to know by heart the entire Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet, but also the designation of absolutely all numbers and the rules for writing them. Ordinary residents of the state were often ignorant of this, because literacy was the privilege of very few.