Cyrillic numerals

Examples of Cyrillic numbers

The Cyrillic numerals are a numbering system derived from the Cyrillic script, used by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used in Russia as late as the early 18th century when Peter the Great replaced it with Arabic numerals.

The system is quasi-decimal, being basically the Ionian numeral system written with the corresponding graphemes of the Cyrillic script—the order is based on the original Greek alphabet, and doesn't correspond to the different standard alphabetical orders of Cyrillic. A separate letter is assigned to each unit (1, 2, ... 9), each multiple of ten (10, 20, ... 90), and each multiple of one hundred (100, 200, ... 900).

The numbers are written as pronounced in Slavonic, generally high value position to low value position, with the exception of numbers 11 through 19 which are pronounced and written units before tens. For example, 17 is "седмьнадесять", "s'edm'-na-d'es'at'" ("seven-on-ten", compare English seven-teen). In order to cipher a Cyrillic number, one has to add all the figures. To distinguish numbers from text, a titlo (   ҃ ) is drawn over the numbers. If the number exceeds 1,000, the thousands sign ( ҂ ) is drawn before the figure, and the thousands figure are written with a letter assigned to the units. For numbers over hundred thousand, Combining Cyrillic Hundred Thousands sign (  ҈  ) is used, and for numbers over the million, Combining Cyrillic Millions sign (  ҉  ) is used.

Examples:

• – 1706
• – 7118

Glagolitic numerals work similarly, except numeric values are assigned according to the native alphabetic order of the Glagolitic alphabet, rather than inherited from the order of the Greek alphabet.

Tower clock with Cyrillic numerals in Suzdal

Computing codes

References

• Гаманович, Алипий (1964, 1984). Грамматика Церковно-Славянскаго Языка. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery Свято-Троицкий монастырь. pp. 271. http://holytrinity.anthology.com/Product.aspx. 

See also

• Early Cyrillic alphabet
• Glagolitic alphabet
• Greek numerals
• Combining Cyrillic Millions