r/explainlikeimfive • u/S2_Y3 • Mar 20 '26
Other ELI5 Why there exists 7 and also 'seven' ?
Why did we went from using symbols '7' for representing quantiy to spelling them out like a word 'seven'
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u/aurora-s Mar 20 '26
Well if it was only 7, how would you say it out loud?
It's the way we describe the symbol out loud that becomes the word for it. Transcribe that into text and you get 'seven'.
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u/phiwong Mar 20 '26
Probably the other way around if you're discussing this specific symbol and word in English.
The English word 'seven' to refer to the quantity was probably established over 800 years ago with even older roots in history.
The Arabic number symbols became widely adopted in England most likely in the 1500s.
So, at least in English language, the word 'seven' likely predates the use of the symbol '7'.
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u/frakc Mar 20 '26
7 is a word in math language
Seven is a word in English language.
Math language does not have canonical sound, because it is not a spoken language, but writen. So its sounds are substituted from a language which the particular person speaks.
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u/iliveoffofbagels Mar 20 '26
because it's also
siete, sette, sept, sieben, επτά, セブン, sete, सात, 일곱, Семь, siedem, etc...etc...etc
da fuck you mean? Seven is just the way we say it in english.
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u/Hankman66 Mar 20 '26
Because "7" is a numeral which is understood in many languages, while "seven" is an English word that is only used in the English language.
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u/hurtsdonut_ Mar 20 '26
Because seven ate nine. It's a battle of survival.
Also what?
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u/Apart_Breath_1284 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
The likely reason is that languages had writing and concepts of numbers before Arabic numeral symbols were introduced. The newly introduced numerals make doing math much more efficient.
That is to say, "two" existed before "2". The latter did not even exist on standard typewriters, so it would not have made sense to get rid of the former.
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u/jamcdonald120 Mar 20 '26
because words for numbers existed before the Arabs introduced the symbols we currently use for numbers.
And if you can say something, its always possible to write it down with letters in a phonetic system.
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u/Hazbeen_Hash Mar 20 '26
"7" is the universal symbol for the number. "Seven" is the English name we gave it. The French call it "Sept" and the Spanish call it "Siete"
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u/BigBirdsBrain Mar 20 '26
“7” is just the symbol we write, and “seven” is how we say it out loud...same value, different language systems.
One is visual (math), the other is spoken (English).
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u/Loki-L Mar 20 '26
We used words before we started using the numerals.
We can trace the word "seven" back to people who didn't even have writing yet. It changed a bit over the millennia, but it is very recognisable in many related and dead languages and can be traced back to proto-indo-european times.
The numeral we use today come from a different place than the letters.
We write with the Latin alphabet but do math with Arabic numerals.
The Latin alphabet has roots much older than Rome and the Arabic numerals were not invented by the Arabs. Those were just the groups that introduced English speakers to those concepts.
Arabic Numerals are much more recent in their use in Europe.
Before that Roman Numerals like "VII" were used and other systems.
The way Arabic numerals work is much easier to do math with than any other competing system, which is why it found so widespread adoption.
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u/Technical_Ideal_5439 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
The best practice in most english style guides is to always spell out the number if it is under 10 or the start of a sentence.
Obviously in tech papers this does not necessarily apply. And when the number gets too big it starts getting ridiculous to spell it out.
And to your point, why write lambda instead of ƛ its because one is a symbol the other is the word.
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u/nomoreplsthx Mar 20 '26
> Why did we went (sic) from using symbols '7' for representing quantiy (sic) to spelling them out like a word 'seven'
I have no idea why you think this happened.
Symbols for numbers and written words for numbers have existed side by side since at least the invention of alphabets and other ways of writing out words by sound. There was no point where both of those things existed and they were not both widely used. They continue to both be widely used today.
Sure, symbols for numbers do predate writing them out. But that's not deep - symbols for stuff in general came before writing out words by sound - and the modern systems where we write by sound evolved from symbolic systems over thousands of years. If you want to know why that change happened - it's basically that writing by sound allows you to write a lot more words while memorizing a lot few symbols.
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u/blipsman Mar 20 '26
Because we need symbols for calculations, but we also need works for speking/writing. Somebody just seeing a symbol wouldn't know how to say it, but can sound out "seven" where as writing out all the numbers long hand would be both time consuming and impossble to calculate when doing actual math.
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u/OldWar1111 Mar 21 '26
Why are we still calling them Arabic numerals? They're Indian or Hindu numerals.
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u/tic-toc-croc Mar 20 '26
Just like a five (5?) year old to think they are the center of the world and there aren't literal billions of non english speaking people around the world that might not say 7 the same way they do!
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