Arabic numerals
The Arabic numeral system, often frightening for many, is described as very complex, and I have to admit, that’s not far from the truth.
In these posts, we’ll try to simplify it as much as possible. As in any other language, Arabic numerals come in two types: cardinal and ordinal.
One note before we dive in: Arabic uses Eastern Arabic numerals (often called Hindi numerals), while English uses Western Arabic numerals, which are commonly known as the Arabic numeral system. Weird, I know.
Cardinal numbers in Arabic
First, let’s see how to count from 0 to 10.
All of these are literally nouns in Arabic, but the numbers “one” and “two” have special features. “One” can function as an adjective, a noun, or even a pronoun depending on the context, while “two” is special because of the dual form in Arabic.
Let’s look at “one” in more detail, specifically when it means “one” as an adjective that follows the counted noun and agrees with it in case and gender.
Now, if we want to say “one of”, we use أحد (‘aḥad) and إحدى (‘ihda). Let’s look at some examples:
But if we want to say “no one”, “nobody”, or “neither one”, we still use أحد (‘ahad), but with a negative verb.
Now let’s go over the numeral “two”, which, unlike “one”, has both masculine and feminine forms and also changes according to case.
As you can see, the genitive and accusative forms are identical, which means the numeral “two” has only two inflections.
The interesting thing about this numeral is that it’s rarely used for counting, because Arabic already has the dual.
Let’s look at some situations where it can come in handy:
In the last example, without اثنين, just كتابين already means “two books”. Adding it is for clarity or emphasis (similar to saying “two books exactly”).
In the next post, we’ll go over the numerals from 3 to 10, and beyond.
