On Sun, Aug 24, 2003 at 05:00:08PM +0200, Matej Kosik wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 03:41:05PM -0700, Colin Putney wrote:
> > 
> > On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 02:22 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:
> > 
> > > And now that we got this let's go back to the roots for real. Why do we
> > > actually write numbers big-endian? ;-)
> > 
> > Well, actually we write them little-endian in a right-to-left script. 
> > Whoever stole arabic numerals from the arabs apparently didn't bother 
> > to do the required digit-swapping when using them with the Roman 
> > alphabet. Perhaps it was because Roman numerals were big-endian.

reversing the order in which we write the digits of the numbers would
be a bad idea:

EN: I have learned these 1234 (One thousand Two hundred and Thirdty Four) words.

ES: Yo aprendre estos 1234 (Un mil Doscientos Treinta y Cuatro) palabras.

SK: Naucil som sa tychto 1234 ((Jeden) tisicDvestoTridsatStryri) slov.

HU: Megtanultam azt a 1234 ((Egy) ezer Ketszaz Harminc Negy) szot.

(German and Czech (occasionnally) does not fit because they swap the ones and the tens,
 they write it in a different order as they read it).
-- 
Matej Kosik <http://infobox.sk/kosik>
ICQ: 300133844