[HN Gopher] Cistercian Numbers
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       Cistercian Numbers
        
       Author : debo_
       Score  : 53 points
       Date   : 2026-02-18 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.omniglot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.omniglot.com)
        
       | tangus wrote:
       | My minuscule pet peeve is that having only one source where the
       | number 5 is depicted with a triangle (all others show it as a
       | separated segment, like the number 6 but shorter), that's how
       | every article or library draws it. It's all because the guy who
       | wrote a book about them saw that source first so he based his
       | figures on it.
       | 
       | Here's a small summary about the numbers with many examples:
       | https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20290-cistercian-digits.pdf
        
         | debo_ wrote:
         | It would never have occurred to me that anyone would want to
         | get these into a Unicode standard. This document you linked is
         | excellent, thank you.
        
         | bobbiechen wrote:
         | Being first matters :')
         | 
         | I wrote a font for these, which does use the triangle-5 and the
         | vertical layout: https://bobbiec.github.io/cistercian-font.html
         | (recent discussion here:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939312)
         | 
         | And my associated writeup:
         | https://digitalseams.com/blog/making-a-font-with-9999-ligatu...
         | .
         | 
         | As mentioned in the blog, I think the horizontal layout makes
         | more sense too (in terms of writing order). But just like the
         | triangle-5, the vertical layout is more commonly seen, so
         | that's what I stuck with.
        
         | autoexec wrote:
         | It might not be accurate but it does seem like it'd be easy to
         | mistake a 5 and 6 without the triangle. Especially when the
         | characters are being hurriedly written by hand. If I were going
         | to use this system, I'd be sticking with the triangle.
        
         | culi wrote:
         | I wish the 6 was a triangle in the other direction instead
        
         | jhncls wrote:
         | In a Numberphile video [0], Alex Bellos also uses a triangle
         | for 5.
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p55Qgt7Ciw
        
       | klondike_klive wrote:
       | Wow, it's a while since I've seen one of those lists of hundreds
       | of vampires that you have to deselect!
        
       | dcanelhas wrote:
       | Shouldn't 523 in that list of "other numbers" actually be 522?
        
         | poulpy123 wrote:
         | You're right
        
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       (page generated 2026-02-18 23:00 UTC)