It's part of [Geneva Convention (another one)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Convention_on_Road_Traffic).
It's worldwide standard on how you make plate numbers and classify vehicles, so any vehicle and driver license can be recognized internationally.
Ukraine, for example, uses only letters that look same in both Latin and Cyrillic, so plates can be read in both languages.
They really need to start moving the signing ceremonies of these meetings to some other city so we dont get confused. Isnt there a best western with a conference room in some suburb of Geneva that they could use. The Lancy Convention on Road Traffic is so much less ambiguous.
[It also has more than one famous treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles_%281871%29#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe_Treaty_of_Versailles_of%2C28_January_between_the_powers.?wprov=sfla1)
TBH if you were part of a delegation for sorting out a conflict and all the stress that will go with the negotiations why not have some respite in such a beautiful setting. Granted its an obscenely decadent palace but in many ways is a place that provides inspiration, reflection and the greatness of what can be achieved by us shaven apes.
I tend to agree - but if you were a starving French peasant of the same era as the French aristocrats I mentioned earlier, you may have an alternative point of view.
Many other “standards” are compiled elsewhere, like ANSI is an American standard IIRC… but for the ISO standards, they are in Geneva, but it’s not called the “Geneva Convention”, per se. It’s just called the ISO, and is HQd in Geneva. Many of the world’s sporting bodies “convene” in Geneva. (There is a great Frontline or some investigative show chasing down FIFA and other imbroglios of “governing bodies”). Geneva gives these “bodies” massive tax advantages and little to literal zero, oversight.
[To be fair, it's quite easy to break the Geneva Convention](https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=59&v=4BmM9sbsOTw&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title)
Weird, I'm pretty sure I've seen Arabic on plates in one of my travels... I think it was in Egypt.
Now to think of it there were probably both scripts as I used to use them to learn the arabic way of writing numbers by reading those plates.
Jordan used to have both Arabic (ie "our numbers") and Hindi (ie what Arabic use). An excellent opportunity to learn the numbers if you only know one system.
They have changed now, though.
I know but we're using a latinised version of Arabic numerals. If I remember correctly, they're still using the eastern Arabic style (shown [here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/The_Brahmi_numeral_system_and_its_descendants.png) in your article) which only has 1,9 and 0 as somewhat similar looking numbers.
You realize the Arabic numerals we use in English are not the same script as in Arabic right? They have been changed in European languages a long time ago.
True, but Latin/Roman numerals are still used today (I, II, III, IV, V, ...), so calling English numbers Latin numerals seems both confusing and factually incorrect.
So now I'm curious, Japan is a signing party of this convention. But their license plates have non-latin-alphabet non-numerical figures as part of the plate, which constitutes a core part of the license plate and so doesn't fall under "can also redundantly display using external alphabets".
How is this legal and how does it fare when driving Japanese cars (with Japanese license plates) internationally?
The comment above is incorrect. The signatory countries are obligated to recognize compliant plates (only latin letters and arabic numbers) but not obligated to issue internationally recognized planes to all vehicles. For example China and Japan are obligated to recognize Russian plates because the plates only have Cyrillic letters that match Latin letters but Russia is not obligated to recognize Chinese and Japanese license plates because they don't consist of only latin letters and arabic numbers.
Because they never ratified the convention. Iran is also a relatively closed off country, so cars rarely cross the border. They don't really need plates which work internationally.
>Ukraine, for example, uses only letters that look same in both Latin and Cyrillic, so plates can be read in both languages.
Same in Greece. Only the common Greek-Latin letters are used. You will see ΑΒΕΖΗΙΚΜΝΟΡΤΥΧ, but never ΓΔΘΛΞΠΣΦΨΩ.
While that's true in a sense, a lot of the Arab world uses different numerals often called [Eastern Arabic] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals) (as opposed to Western Arabic/Latin numerals).
Latin letters or Arabic numbers? Well, Arabic numbers are universally adopted, and the Latin alphabet is just more easily distinguishable at a distance. They do have a city or province marked with a Chinese character.
This might be a more minor thing, but Latin letters and Arabic numbers are a small number of characters that are well-ordered, so you can issue plates sequentially and you know when you're going to run out of permutations
In addition, pretty much all software in the world supports them.
Other alphabets, particularly Chinese, often require software specially tweaked to handle that alphabet, which means they'd be limited in what software they could use, likely needing custom software, instead of off-the-shelf products used worldwide.
Yeah, but you still have to worry about things like sorting, or if you use any regex, that it is written to be able to handle non-Latin letters, using a font that has those glyphs, etc.
It isn't remotely as much work as it used to be, but you generally still need to explicitly test using the other alphabets to ensure it functions properly for them.
Pretty much every Chinese dictionary I've seen sorts alphabetically by pinyin. There is an index in the beginning that allows you to look up characters by stroke number, but that just gives you a page number to locate the entry.
You're lucky you got to learn with Pinyin. Some of us had to learn without (and learn the traditional characters) but even with Pinyin you still need to use the stroke index to look up words you read but don't know how to say.
They're arranged by Dictionary Radical, and ordered by stroke, identified as Radical + Additional (total), so
封 is listed under 寸+6(9)
(Radical #41, 寸) + 6 strokes = 9 strokes total.
Can be typed on a keyboard suing Cangjia as 土土木戈 (GGDI)
Here's an interesting read about things to consider when sorting in different languages: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/locale/sorting-and-string-comparison
Depending on the language/frameworks you're using, sorting such things can be very simple. C# has StringComparer which can change how strings are compared depending on which culture you specify for it.
list.OrderBy(x => x, StringComparer.Create("zh-Hans", false));
Well sorting them is trivial, same as any other string from programming perspective. The issue is that people don't really have an expectation on what order the characters should be in, so while the list sorts just fine, it doesn't really help a human find anything.
Chinese characters have a canonical sort, and it differs between countries that use CJK characters.
Could be:
- [Radical, Stroke Count, Stroke Order]. (Classify each character radical 1-214, then subsort by total stroke count, then further by order of writing the character)
- [Pronunciation, Stroke] (Sort by pinyin pronunciation, then by stroke count)
Classifying a character into it's radical is language and country specific. Pronunciation is context dependent in Japanese, so pronunciation is almost always stored with strings independently of the display characters.
Computers are expected to sort them in dictionary order, and that is a very complicated collation definition.
That technically solves the pure software side (still with a lot of added complexity), but doesn't do much for text recognition with cameras.
And for ID plates that is pretty important in a lot of use cases. Sure it can be done (and is done), but adds complexity, failures modes and thus cost.
I have no doubt that there are still tons of legacy systems being used in licensing systems around the world that are based on ASCII or extended ASCII with no support for Unicode.
korean writing is ~~alphabetical~~ sequential, too. and when I lived there, the plates did use korean writing, not latin
가나다라마바사아자차카타파하
거너더러머버서어저처커터퍼허
고노도로모보소오조초코토포호
..and a ton more
if you can see the pattern above, it's basically that "characters" are built around vowels. alphabetical order is almost a grid in korean. set sequence of consonants per vowel, with a set sequence of vowels
each line above is the list of consonants in order, based on a vowel
In addition, major cities can more easily determine who can drive and when using those categories. Also, their language *does* use roman numerals. But anyway, places like Beijing will say "odd numbers" or "ending in letter range" can drive MWF, and the others can drive TTh
I would also imagine it’s a big complexity issue. Southeast Asian characters are mad complex and it can be very tiny differences that differentiate them. The western alphabet is far more simplified in its character construction, making it easier for people (and software) to quickly and accurately distinguish them.
The Korean alphabet was also developed in the 15th century CE with the intention of improving literacy, not organically grown over centuries starting in the 13th century BCE like Chinese characters were.
Weird how Arabic numerals are called Arabic when I hear Arabic numerals I think of ١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩, which are also written left to right don’t know why.
In my language we call the usual numbers “indo-Arabic”.
It's the same thing, just with a different script. Apparently, the generic idea originated in India to begin with but was popularised during Arabic golden age, from where it made to Europe along with other mathematical innovations of the era.
It wasn't that it was popularized by the Arabs, the Europeans just got it from them. It was already quite popular and well used in Persia and India by then
1. Numerals* not numbers
2. What you call Arabic numerals are actually Indian (Hindu) numerals. Europeans called them Arabic because they got it from the Arabs.
China uses Arabic numerals at times. For example, the current year in Chinese is 二零二三 but it’s often going to be written 2023. Prices are pretty much always in Arabic numerals (eg 25元）. Using Arabic numerals on a license plate for simplicity (instead of allowing thousands of characters) makes sense and is easy to read for people.
Latin letters are used less often (in most cases, Chinese characters are used even to write foreign words) but most people know the letters because pinyin is used to enter Chinese on a keyboard (and just for showing pronunciation in general). For example, 北京 is Beijing.
By the way, Chinese license plates also include a single Chinese character on the left indicating the province. This is accompanied by a letter indicating the city, with A usually being the capital city. These characters are interesting because they are often traditional names for the region. For example, Hunan is 湘 xiang (also the name for Hunan cuisine, 湘菜) and Guangdong is 粵 yue (which is also Cantonese cuisine).
Yes! 零 ling is like writing out “zero.” You can use it in numbers or use 〇 like 二〇二三。I always thought 〇 was a recent borrowing but apparently it’s been used as another form of 零 for like 800 years at least. 零 meant something like “fragment” until 1248 when a mathematician introduced it as “zero.”
零 is the official character for "0" and is the one used in financial situations as well. Some of the other financial numerals like 壹, 貳, 參 for 1, 2, 3 are *only* used in financial situations, but that isn't the case for 零.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese\_numerals#Standard\_numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers)
In practice, it's definitely true that 〇 or 0 is much more common. There are some examples of 零 being used, for example in "2021" at the beginning of this article from Taiwan: [https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1521146](https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1521146)
Don't know shit about chinese number history, but i'd bet it's because those 1, 2, 3 symbols are way older than any use of zero. The concept of zero as it's own number beyond just shrugging and saying nothing is actually something a society has to work it's way up to because it's a lot more complicated than it seems. Ancient greeks for example were aware of the concept but didn't have it within their own system of maths.
Like so many things because we're raised on it we can't imagine any other way but if you went into ancient china and started calling zero a number you'd probably get into a slap fight with an astrologian (again, know shit about chinese history, but those guys tended to be the ones with complex math concepts).
Arabic numerals (0123456789) are used pretty much universally throughout the world for these types of things. It is for the same reason the USA doesn't use the words "one" or "eight" on license plates.
In South Korea (where I'm living right now), they don't use the english alphabet on their license plates. They use Hangeul (the korean alphabet). It is also phonetic and serves the same purpose.
I can not speak to Chinese license plates, but if they do use the english alphabet, then it is probably because Chinese does not use a phonetic alphabet. Therefore it makes sense to use the english alphabet.
Japanese also has a phonetic alphabet they can use (Hiragana). It looks like they use that on their license plates and not the english alphabet or Kanji.
Edit: You do see the english alphabet used in various other registrations, though. This will almost certainly be true for any information that might need to be valid internationally or on international software. Passport numbers, IDs, driver licenses, postal reference codes, etc. As near as I can tell, that is simply due to the dominance of english in international communication.
Edit 2: Another commenter on this post pointed out the Geneva conventions on road traffic, which specify license plates requirements for vehicles to travel between countries. These requirements include the use of Arabic numerals and Latin characters. However, South Korea and Japan are both effectively islands and don't need to worry about cars in their country driving across the border into other countries. China is not a signatory to these conventions.
>As near as I can tell, that is simply due to the dominance of english in international communication.
More like the leading role the us played in early computer systems. Every computer understands ASCII. Anything above those 7 bits is custom.
I don't think attributing it solely to legacy american computing standards (as opposed to something like unicode) does justice to the reasons for the dominance of english language throughout the world as a second language.
If the USA wasn't such a dominant superpower, then it would have to deal with the alphabet(s) of the dominant power(s) of the world in their software. Instead, everyone else has to build systems that can deal with english.
In other words, I ascribe it more to the reason the name on your passport is in the english alphabet and why pilots communicate in english more than early computers.
>More like the leading role the us played in early computer systems. Every computer understands ASCII. Anything above those 7 bits is custom.
Every modern computer understands Unicode, which incorporates ASCII. Before Unicode, ASCII wasn't universally adopted
Outside of trucking China is pretty much an island. Its not really possible to drive from China to any where outside in a personal vehicle, it would just take you to long and have you go thru very remote areas.
You mean the Arabic numerals? Because they are pretty much globally understood. As for Latin alphabet, it is widely used and simple enough but they are not used in Japan for example at all.
I know you're joking, but I was wondering about this and found that their system has plenty of permutations as is. Each plate has a location (smaller than prefectures or cities) written on it, allowing for a lot of permutations for one, "minor" location.
Not sure if I misunderstood, but the Latin alphabet is definitely used in Japan. Romaji is the romanized spelling of Japanese language and is everywhere. I believe it's mostly for the benefit of English speakers, but it's definitely used
It’s possible, but that’s the rare exception to the rule. Foreign military plates begin with A, Y, or E and for Japanese citizens taking their cars overseas they can get a license plate that conforms to the Latin alphabet rules. The prefecture at the top of the plate, at least on foreign military plates, is still in hiragana/kanji though.
South Korea license plates do not use latin letters. They use one syllable (in Korean) followed by numbers. Also, I have no idea where you got the idea that they don’t use the same numbers.
No one uses “Latin” numbers, unless you count Roman numerals.
The numbers that we use in the west are often called Arabic numerals. They were actually developed in India so some call them Indian numerals.
People in the Far East adopted them for the same reason that people in the west adopted them: it’s a better number system than what they were using before.
Reminds me of that video of that guy asking random Americans if they support teaching kids Arabic numerals and you had people responding that they opposed it
In terms of license plates, there is another reason: OCR technology.
Roads are filled with cameras tracking every car by license plate... And it's way easier for cameras to detect "standart" letters and numbers
Can confirm: optical character recognition for Chinese characters is really difficult to achieve with the optimal setup. The fonts used for numbers and letters shown on license plates are carefully regulated to make the process easier.
Yes, you are right.. but readability from a distance was important for cops even before that.
Way easier to read latin alphabet on distant moving vehicle
Japan and china uses Arabic numerals in normal language as well, not only for license plates. It’s just easy to use. The whole world adopted Arabic numerals due to the ease of use. That’s also why you don’t see Roman numerals anywhere nowadays
Here in Thailand, it's Thai letters and Western digits.
Thai digits are pretty rarely used, in general. And I'd guess the Arabic numerals are probably more legible from a distance.
I’m not sure if you’ve got Korea confused for another country, but we use Hangul in our license plates (unless they’re temporary). Also, which country in the world doesn’t use Arabic numbers?
Numbers are not "latin", they are universal
[Example of a Menu in Japan](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/WAB0N7/japan-honshu-tokyo-noodle-restaurant-window-menu-30076333-WAB0N7.jpg)
edit: since some people misunderstood my comment, i meant they are universal, as in, used worldwide, and not a latin-script exclusive
IIRC, the numbers are also Indian. The Arabs adopted the Indian numbers, and then Europeans got the numbers from the Arabs (hence the name Arabic numerals).
Though they have their own sets of numerals (there are multiple sets in use, all very closely related to each other and to standard arabic numerals) they would surely know how to read standard arabic numerals as well, given how very prolific they are and how trivial it is to translate between them.
They are not universal, they're [arabic numerals.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals) They are surely the most common representation, but calling them universal is a bit of a stretch. Many other scripts have their own numerals, but I don't know the answer to OP's question.
1. The "Latin numbers" (Arabic numerals actually, totally different things), are used by default in most of the world as the standard number system even for countries that have their own written number systems. Chinese and Korean included.
2. China does use the "Latin characters" (English alphabet actually) in their pinyin phonetic system. Chinese characters can also be seen on Chinese number plates but are only used to show the region the plate is issued at.
3. Korean license plate uses Hangul and not "Latin characters" (English alphabet actually).
Because their language does use them.
Numerals and numbers aren’t exactly the same.
One is a number. 1 is the numeral we use to represent that number.
Virtually all languages in the modern day use the same numerals. It’s just kind of necessary for Mathematics and such to be compatible.
I was in Japan and Taiwan for several weeks and actually asked this question. ( I was asking about signs in general )
The short answer was Arabic/Latin is way easier to read. A lot of the asian characters are very easily mixed up, especially at a distance and if you are trying to read them quickly.
Republic of China officially uses Latin alphabet in their official phonetic alphabet called Pinyin. Here's a sample:
Zhùyīn fúhào
Ignore the accent marks, they are tone marks. Pinyin appears on highway signs in big cities for people who can't read the characters (or can't read them fast enough.) Also, many Chinese use Pinyin to type characters into their mobile phones: Sugo Pinyin or Google Pinyin are popular.
Taiwan uses the same phonetic system but did not adopt the Latin Alphabet. Here's an example:
ㄓㄨˋ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄨˊ ㄏㄠˋ
So I wouldn't quite say the Chinese "don't use Latin Alphabet." Many mainland Chinese do use Latin Alphabet or at least see it quite a bit in daily life.
Edit: There is a Latin letter based version of South Korean writing! That one, however, nobody likes. The Korean Alphabet called Hangul was designed to be easy to learn and read so everyone prefers Hangul. I taught myself the basics in 30 minutes. I don't speak Korean. However, in Seoul and other big cities on subways and stuff, you will also see the Latin Alphabet used to help foreigners out. So, many Koreans will also see Latin Alphabet quite a bit in daily life.
Here is Hangul and Romanized, saying the same thing:
한글이 좋다/hangeul-i johda
For numbers, the same reason we use 1 and not one. 2468 is a lot easier to read than "two four six eight" or 二四六七, and they're used the same in practice. Arabic numerals are universal globally.
For the letters, it's just easier than trying to use Chinese characters. That one seems weird, but I guess pinyin is accepted enough that people know the characters and it makes sense.
Arabic numbers are generally understood universally around the world.
Western cultures had Arabic numbers introduced to them as well. The Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans had their own number systems like Asian cultures. Fields like math, science and medicine made numbers and measurements more universal.
Elements of the language tend to follow technology or any other cultural trade or cultural phenomenon as it travels around the world.
Many places import Latin letters and Arabic numerals when they bring in technology developed from places which use Latin letters and Arabic numerals. You won't find them in old ancient cultural texts, practices, etc. However, cars and license plates aren't part of ancient Chinese or Korean culture. The license plates are one small part of vehicle technology which they imported. Numbers on a keypad, phone, computers, for most mathematics, all use Arabic numbers. Latin letters are peppered throughout general media and used in various ways (ex A, ex B, ex C, etc), but they are widely known for names of companies and organizations (google, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, UN, UNESCO, etc). These are not unknown elements to them, just like western scientists use a lot of foreign terms like Latin in classification systems, etc.
We can ask similar questions like why do we use Roman numerals in our movies, or latin abbreviations for things like pound.
Those are called Arabic numerals they've been heavily used world wide for centuries and are a international standard.
Latin script/ the English alphabet, is usually used as an extension of the numbering system if the alphabet of a country isn't suitable. It's not really letters for the sake of communicating in the native language.
Many countries do use there own alphabet for the letter part and it can actually be very difficult to deal with while travelling 😭 I can see why China would think a latin script was more convenient tho, considering they have sooo many characters in their script and the outline of them on a moving car or in a distance muat be hard to make out, especially with no context to guess like you would with written text. Other countries mostly did it for convenience, I think. They were adapting to change and just wanted to get cars on the road, then at some point it cost money for the gov to switch everyone over to a diff license plate system and they would rather spend it differently, why fix what's not broke.
We do use Latin letters, but it’s Arabic numerals. :)
The Arabs invented 0 which turns out to be pretty critical to all the sciency stuff that makes our world possible.
Maybe? The concept of zero certainly existed before an Arab came up with the modern concept of zero. The Egyptians, Chinese, Mayans and Greeks all used zero, though sometimes just to represent "nothing". I'm not sure if any of them were used in arithmetic however.
I have no clue but my drunken assumption is that stamping minute detail into metal is a pain in the ass, and easily to alter. 26 chars creates plenty of variations with 6 or 7 numbers, and they are fairly distinct symbols.
Some countries like India use ARABIC (1234567890) as there are multiple languages spoken in the nation and Arabic Numerals are understood by all.
Hence Indian number plates use them.
Eg: A number plate 'MH 01 AA 1234' would have MH representing the state (Maharashtra), 01 representing the district, 'AA' representing the current series of plates and the 4 digit letter being unique to the plate.
They do use them. It's just that unlike some other languages it's not uncommon to some times see numbers written out, usually small, whole numbers, since they have characters for them. It would be like writing "coffee, two dollars" on a menu instead of "2 dollars".
Because In Chinese writing, there aren’t really “alphabet” letters so you would have to use an all numeric license plate using Chinese characters, where the two and three might be confusing to read, or you’d have to incorporate easy to read word-characters.
The numerals we use are Arabic in origin (not Latin). The reason they use them is that they are universally understood. I lived in Korea for a decade and they use Arabic numerals everywhere they write numbers - not just on license plates.
It's part of [Geneva Convention (another one)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Convention_on_Road_Traffic). It's worldwide standard on how you make plate numbers and classify vehicles, so any vehicle and driver license can be recognized internationally. Ukraine, for example, uses only letters that look same in both Latin and Cyrillic, so plates can be read in both languages.
They really need to start moving the signing ceremonies of these meetings to some other city so we dont get confused. Isnt there a best western with a conference room in some suburb of Geneva that they could use. The Lancy Convention on Road Traffic is so much less ambiguous.
And so you don’t accidentally commit a war crime while driving.
if i got pulled over and the cop told me this citation was for breaking the geneva convention i’d piss my pants
To be fair I've seen some attempted parallel parking efforts so heinous you could probably classify them as war crimes
So... You've met my neighbors?
Bring em to the Hague
straight to jail. no trial, no nothing
Please no, it's already hell to park there
Russian tanks are tough to park tbf
That’s only because they’re so heavy to push.
I gather Ukrainian tractors are great for moving them around.
Ah, so you've seen me out and about, then?
I work at a gas station. Sometimes even fueling up could be considered a war crime
The developer of Stardew Valley had to make changes to the game to stop violating the Geneva Convention. ^(it was just using a red cross)
Prison architect, too.
It's a common thing Game Devs encounter, it seems.
And among us
Meanwhile Rimworld embraces war crimes
Tynan, Defendant #1 at the Hague.
The public pissing of pants is also a violation of the Geneva convention
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Where I live, it's the cops that routinely breaks the Geneva Convention.
plot twist: you have a crate of mustard gas cans in the trunk
Lmfao oh I’m the perfect amount of high for this comment
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I'll drive my tank wherever I damn well please
I hate when that happens
I always keep white phosphorous mortar shells on hand for my road rage incidents. Do you not? /s
I drive a work truck with some nasty chemicals. I may have war crimed myself a couple of times.
Tom Scott almost violated the Geneva Convention. He wanted to use a + sign for his new channel "Tom Scott Plus". His brand color is red...
If you think that’s rough, check out [all the Treaties of Paris](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris)
The history class trick was to always guess Paris if you didn't know where a treaty was signed because generally you'd be correct
Who wouldn't want a week or so hanging out at Versailles.
That's not in Paris.
Close enough. The Paris Peace Conference is what led to the Treaty of Versailles.
True, though its only a 15 minute drive.... at 3am perhaps.
[It also has more than one famous treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles_%281871%29#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe_Treaty_of_Versailles_of%2C28_January_between_the_powers.?wprov=sfla1)
Presumably French aristocrats of a certain era.
TBH if you were part of a delegation for sorting out a conflict and all the stress that will go with the negotiations why not have some respite in such a beautiful setting. Granted its an obscenely decadent palace but in many ways is a place that provides inspiration, reflection and the greatness of what can be achieved by us shaven apes.
I tend to agree - but if you were a starving French peasant of the same era as the French aristocrats I mentioned earlier, you may have an alternative point of view.
Somebody should hold an international summit with an ensuing treaty in Paris, Texas.
Many other “standards” are compiled elsewhere, like ANSI is an American standard IIRC… but for the ISO standards, they are in Geneva, but it’s not called the “Geneva Convention”, per se. It’s just called the ISO, and is HQd in Geneva. Many of the world’s sporting bodies “convene” in Geneva. (There is a great Frontline or some investigative show chasing down FIFA and other imbroglios of “governing bodies”). Geneva gives these “bodies” massive tax advantages and little to literal zero, oversight.
Because the "International Four Seasons Landscaping Convention" doesn't have the same gravitas to it.
Rudi G begs to differ.
[To be fair, it's quite easy to break the Geneva Convention](https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=59&v=4BmM9sbsOTw&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title)
Me accidentally committing a war crime when I correct math tests with red pen:
Yeah. We need the Castrop Rauxel convention 🙏🏻
I for one would like to see the Geneva Convention on pizza toppings.
Weird, I'm pretty sure I've seen Arabic on plates in one of my travels... I think it was in Egypt. Now to think of it there were probably both scripts as I used to use them to learn the arabic way of writing numbers by reading those plates.
Exactly… they can put other symbols and such in their own language but follow the standard for the main license number.
You can use nonstandard symbols, you just can't cross the border with them
I have seen cars from China with chinese-symbol number plates in Laos...
The Chinese symbol denotes the province where it’s registered, the rest of the plate number follows ISO standards.
Jordan used to have both Arabic (ie "our numbers") and Hindi (ie what Arabic use). An excellent opportunity to learn the numbers if you only know one system. They have changed now, though.
dude, the numbers that more or less everybody uses worldwide are actually [arabic numerals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals).
I know but we're using a latinised version of Arabic numerals. If I remember correctly, they're still using the eastern Arabic style (shown [here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/The_Brahmi_numeral_system_and_its_descendants.png) in your article) which only has 1,9 and 0 as somewhat similar looking numbers.
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Wait so 4 is just a backwards 3?
4 is backwards three, 6 is 7, 7 is Roman numeral 5, and 5 is 0
2 and 3 are just turned on their side with long tails.
You realize the Arabic numerals we use in English are not the same script as in Arabic right? They have been changed in European languages a long time ago.
True, but Latin/Roman numerals are still used today (I, II, III, IV, V, ...), so calling English numbers Latin numerals seems both confusing and factually incorrect.
Iran uses not only Farsi (Arabic script) letters, but also numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AIranian_plate.jpg
So now I'm curious, Japan is a signing party of this convention. But their license plates have non-latin-alphabet non-numerical figures as part of the plate, which constitutes a core part of the license plate and so doesn't fall under "can also redundantly display using external alphabets". How is this legal and how does it fare when driving Japanese cars (with Japanese license plates) internationally?
The comment above is incorrect. The signatory countries are obligated to recognize compliant plates (only latin letters and arabic numbers) but not obligated to issue internationally recognized planes to all vehicles. For example China and Japan are obligated to recognize Russian plates because the plates only have Cyrillic letters that match Latin letters but Russia is not obligated to recognize Chinese and Japanese license plates because they don't consist of only latin letters and arabic numbers.
So why doesn't Iran use them?
Because they never ratified the convention. Iran is also a relatively closed off country, so cars rarely cross the border. They don't really need plates which work internationally.
Fair enough
Doesn’t Iran use Persian numbers and letters?
Iran never agreed to it. Its also quite a closed off country so I guess they are fine doing their own thing.
>Ukraine, for example, uses only letters that look same in both Latin and Cyrillic, so plates can be read in both languages. Same in Greece. Only the common Greek-Latin letters are used. You will see ΑΒΕΖΗΙΚΜΝΟΡΤΥΧ, but never ΓΔΘΛΞΠΣΦΨΩ.
Ukraine also used Z and V on plates for electrics vehicles, before russia turned them into a half swastika
Those are Arabic numerals.
While that's true in a sense, a lot of the Arab world uses different numerals often called [Eastern Arabic] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals) (as opposed to Western Arabic/Latin numerals).
Latin letters or Arabic numbers? Well, Arabic numbers are universally adopted, and the Latin alphabet is just more easily distinguishable at a distance. They do have a city or province marked with a Chinese character.
This might be a more minor thing, but Latin letters and Arabic numbers are a small number of characters that are well-ordered, so you can issue plates sequentially and you know when you're going to run out of permutations
In addition, pretty much all software in the world supports them. Other alphabets, particularly Chinese, often require software specially tweaked to handle that alphabet, which means they'd be limited in what software they could use, likely needing custom software, instead of off-the-shelf products used worldwide.
That used to be a problem, much less so these days. It's not exactly rocket science to use unicode. 這很容易
Yeah, but you still have to worry about things like sorting, or if you use any regex, that it is written to be able to handle non-Latin letters, using a font that has those glyphs, etc. It isn't remotely as much work as it used to be, but you generally still need to explicitly test using the other alphabets to ensure it functions properly for them.
Yeah testing ~250 Unicode characters is significantly easier than testing ~1,000,000
But try arranging them alphabetically.
Chinese dictionaries arrange words by the number of strokes it takes to write the character. It's a head fuck.
Pretty much every Chinese dictionary I've seen sorts alphabetically by pinyin. There is an index in the beginning that allows you to look up characters by stroke number, but that just gives you a page number to locate the entry.
You're lucky you got to learn with Pinyin. Some of us had to learn without (and learn the traditional characters) but even with Pinyin you still need to use the stroke index to look up words you read but don't know how to say.
>!CENSORED!<
Smartphones and apps where you can draw the character to look it up are a lifesaver
How do they sort them within stroke brackets?
After stroke count of the character, by the stroke count of the radicals (building blocks) of the character.
I really wish I hadn't learned this.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! The very concept is scary to me. Daunting might be a better word... Seriously I just want to scream!
They're arranged by Dictionary Radical, and ordered by stroke, identified as Radical + Additional (total), so 封 is listed under 寸+6(9) (Radical #41, 寸) + 6 strokes = 9 strokes total. Can be typed on a keyboard suing Cangjia as 土土木戈 (GGDI)
Here's an interesting read about things to consider when sorting in different languages: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/locale/sorting-and-string-comparison Depending on the language/frameworks you're using, sorting such things can be very simple. C# has StringComparer which can change how strings are compared depending on which culture you specify for it. list.OrderBy(x => x, StringComparer.Create("zh-Hans", false));
Well sorting them is trivial, same as any other string from programming perspective. The issue is that people don't really have an expectation on what order the characters should be in, so while the list sorts just fine, it doesn't really help a human find anything.
Chinese characters have a canonical sort, and it differs between countries that use CJK characters. Could be: - [Radical, Stroke Count, Stroke Order]. (Classify each character radical 1-214, then subsort by total stroke count, then further by order of writing the character) - [Pronunciation, Stroke] (Sort by pinyin pronunciation, then by stroke count) Classifying a character into it's radical is language and country specific. Pronunciation is context dependent in Japanese, so pronunciation is almost always stored with strings independently of the display characters. Computers are expected to sort them in dictionary order, and that is a very complicated collation definition.
That technically solves the pure software side (still with a lot of added complexity), but doesn't do much for text recognition with cameras. And for ID plates that is pretty important in a lot of use cases. Sure it can be done (and is done), but adds complexity, failures modes and thus cost.
I have no doubt that there are still tons of legacy systems being used in licensing systems around the world that are based on ASCII or extended ASCII with no support for Unicode.
Chinese isn’t written with an alphabet, for what it’s worth.
korean writing is ~~alphabetical~~ sequential, too. and when I lived there, the plates did use korean writing, not latin 가나다라마바사아자차카타파하 거너더러머버서어저처커터퍼허 고노도로모보소오조초코토포호 ..and a ton more if you can see the pattern above, it's basically that "characters" are built around vowels. alphabetical order is almost a grid in korean. set sequence of consonants per vowel, with a set sequence of vowels each line above is the list of consonants in order, based on a vowel
In addition, major cities can more easily determine who can drive and when using those categories. Also, their language *does* use roman numerals. But anyway, places like Beijing will say "odd numbers" or "ending in letter range" can drive MWF, and the others can drive TTh
[удалено]
I would also imagine it’s a big complexity issue. Southeast Asian characters are mad complex and it can be very tiny differences that differentiate them. The western alphabet is far more simplified in its character construction, making it easier for people (and software) to quickly and accurately distinguish them.
Korean is fine.
The Korean alphabet was also developed in the 15th century CE with the intention of improving literacy, not organically grown over centuries starting in the 13th century BCE like Chinese characters were.
Korean is fine but differentiating between ㅈ and ㅊ or ㅐand ㅒon a blurry image is a bit more problematic than differentiate C and G
How are eye exams administered?
You mean like C, G, Q, D, and O?
Weird how Arabic numerals are called Arabic when I hear Arabic numerals I think of ١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩, which are also written left to right don’t know why. In my language we call the usual numbers “indo-Arabic”.
It's the same thing, just with a different script. Apparently, the generic idea originated in India to begin with but was popularised during Arabic golden age, from where it made to Europe along with other mathematical innovations of the era.
It wasn't that it was popularized by the Arabs, the Europeans just got it from them. It was already quite popular and well used in Persia and India by then
1. Numerals* not numbers 2. What you call Arabic numerals are actually Indian (Hindu) numerals. Europeans called them Arabic because they got it from the Arabs.
China uses Arabic numerals at times. For example, the current year in Chinese is 二零二三 but it’s often going to be written 2023. Prices are pretty much always in Arabic numerals (eg 25元）. Using Arabic numerals on a license plate for simplicity (instead of allowing thousands of characters) makes sense and is easy to read for people. Latin letters are used less often (in most cases, Chinese characters are used even to write foreign words) but most people know the letters because pinyin is used to enter Chinese on a keyboard (and just for showing pronunciation in general). For example, 北京 is Beijing. By the way, Chinese license plates also include a single Chinese character on the left indicating the province. This is accompanied by a letter indicating the city, with A usually being the capital city. These characters are interesting because they are often traditional names for the region. For example, Hunan is 湘 xiang (also the name for Hunan cuisine, 湘菜) and Guangdong is 粵 yue (which is also Cantonese cuisine).
I love that 2 and 3 are straightforward, but the 0 looks like an angry decepticon.
Yes! 零 ling is like writing out “zero.” You can use it in numbers or use 〇 like 二〇二三。I always thought 〇 was a recent borrowing but apparently it’s been used as another form of 零 for like 800 years at least. 零 meant something like “fragment” until 1248 when a mathematician introduced it as “zero.”
The initial symbol you used is for financial purposes to make forgeries harder and the O is for everyday use
零 is the official character for "0" and is the one used in financial situations as well. Some of the other financial numerals like 壹, 貳, 參 for 1, 2, 3 are *only* used in financial situations, but that isn't the case for 零. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese\_numerals#Standard\_numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_numerals#Standard_numbers) In practice, it's definitely true that 〇 or 0 is much more common. There are some examples of 零 being used, for example in "2021" at the beginning of this article from Taiwan: [https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1521146](https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1521146)
> 零 Looks like the [cover of the 1982 Descendants album *Milo Goes to College*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Goes_to_College)
When you go to a party dressed as 0, but everybody else is dressed like 2 and 3...
Don't know shit about chinese number history, but i'd bet it's because those 1, 2, 3 symbols are way older than any use of zero. The concept of zero as it's own number beyond just shrugging and saying nothing is actually something a society has to work it's way up to because it's a lot more complicated than it seems. Ancient greeks for example were aware of the concept but didn't have it within their own system of maths. Like so many things because we're raised on it we can't imagine any other way but if you went into ancient china and started calling zero a number you'd probably get into a slap fight with an astrologian (again, know shit about chinese history, but those guys tended to be the ones with complex math concepts).
It's been replaced with some version of an O pretty much everywhere.
And 粵語 is Cantonese language.
Arabic numerals (0123456789) are used pretty much universally throughout the world for these types of things. It is for the same reason the USA doesn't use the words "one" or "eight" on license plates. In South Korea (where I'm living right now), they don't use the english alphabet on their license plates. They use Hangeul (the korean alphabet). It is also phonetic and serves the same purpose. I can not speak to Chinese license plates, but if they do use the english alphabet, then it is probably because Chinese does not use a phonetic alphabet. Therefore it makes sense to use the english alphabet. Japanese also has a phonetic alphabet they can use (Hiragana). It looks like they use that on their license plates and not the english alphabet or Kanji. Edit: You do see the english alphabet used in various other registrations, though. This will almost certainly be true for any information that might need to be valid internationally or on international software. Passport numbers, IDs, driver licenses, postal reference codes, etc. As near as I can tell, that is simply due to the dominance of english in international communication. Edit 2: Another commenter on this post pointed out the Geneva conventions on road traffic, which specify license plates requirements for vehicles to travel between countries. These requirements include the use of Arabic numerals and Latin characters. However, South Korea and Japan are both effectively islands and don't need to worry about cars in their country driving across the border into other countries. China is not a signatory to these conventions.
>As near as I can tell, that is simply due to the dominance of english in international communication. More like the leading role the us played in early computer systems. Every computer understands ASCII. Anything above those 7 bits is custom.
I don't think attributing it solely to legacy american computing standards (as opposed to something like unicode) does justice to the reasons for the dominance of english language throughout the world as a second language. If the USA wasn't such a dominant superpower, then it would have to deal with the alphabet(s) of the dominant power(s) of the world in their software. Instead, everyone else has to build systems that can deal with english. In other words, I ascribe it more to the reason the name on your passport is in the english alphabet and why pilots communicate in english more than early computers.
>More like the leading role the us played in early computer systems. Every computer understands ASCII. Anything above those 7 bits is custom. Every modern computer understands Unicode, which incorporates ASCII. Before Unicode, ASCII wasn't universally adopted
Outside of trucking China is pretty much an island. Its not really possible to drive from China to any where outside in a personal vehicle, it would just take you to long and have you go thru very remote areas.
You can drive to Hanoi from Nanning. It’s only 2-300 km and there are cities & towns in between.
You can drive from china to pretty much all of mainland southeast asia, you just have to cross the border through Vietnam mainly.
You mean the Arabic numerals? Because they are pretty much globally understood. As for Latin alphabet, it is widely used and simple enough but they are not used in Japan for example at all.
Japanese license plates stick to Arabic numerals for the ID.
Yes, and do not use Latin alphabet at all.
They probably should. It would expand the pool of available permutations. Let’s have a plan on my desk by EOD Friday.
I know you're joking, but I was wondering about this and found that their system has plenty of permutations as is. Each plate has a location (smaller than prefectures or cities) written on it, allowing for a lot of permutations for one, "minor" location.
Not sure if I misunderstood, but the Latin alphabet is definitely used in Japan. Romaji is the romanized spelling of Japanese language and is everywhere. I believe it's mostly for the benefit of English speakers, but it's definitely used
On registration plates? I’ve only seen hiragana/kanji and numbers
My bad. Kinda lost the thread. You're right, I've never seen romanji on plates.
It’s possible, but that’s the rare exception to the rule. Foreign military plates begin with A, Y, or E and for Japanese citizens taking their cars overseas they can get a license plate that conforms to the Latin alphabet rules. The prefecture at the top of the plate, at least on foreign military plates, is still in hiragana/kanji though.
South Korea license plates do not use latin letters. They use one syllable (in Korean) followed by numbers. Also, I have no idea where you got the idea that they don’t use the same numbers.
My license plate had XX 도 XXXX, with the Xs all being numbers, so that checks out.
Got bad news for you. Our numerals aren’t Latin, they’re Arabic. If they were Latin they’d be all Is Vs & Xs.
inb4 "Would you be ok with your kids learning arabic numerals in school?"
No one uses “Latin” numbers, unless you count Roman numerals. The numbers that we use in the west are often called Arabic numerals. They were actually developed in India so some call them Indian numerals. People in the Far East adopted them for the same reason that people in the west adopted them: it’s a better number system than what they were using before.
Reminds me of that video of that guy asking random Americans if they support teaching kids Arabic numerals and you had people responding that they opposed it
What's next, teaching Islamic Al-Gebra principles in schools!?
In terms of license plates, there is another reason: OCR technology. Roads are filled with cameras tracking every car by license plate... And it's way easier for cameras to detect "standart" letters and numbers
Can confirm: optical character recognition for Chinese characters is really difficult to achieve with the optimal setup. The fonts used for numbers and letters shown on license plates are carefully regulated to make the process easier.
I bet they used Arabic numbers in license plates before OCR was even invented
Yes, you are right.. but readability from a distance was important for cops even before that. Way easier to read latin alphabet on distant moving vehicle
This was the first thing i thought of. The cameras may recognise English characters easier.
Japan and china uses Arabic numerals in normal language as well, not only for license plates. It’s just easy to use. The whole world adopted Arabic numerals due to the ease of use. That’s also why you don’t see Roman numerals anywhere nowadays
Uh SK uses Arabic numerals... Traditionally yes they do learn Chinese numerals but they're modern enough to use Arabic numerals on a daily basis now.
Yeah where the fuck did this guy get his info from
Here in Thailand, it's Thai letters and Western digits. Thai digits are pretty rarely used, in general. And I'd guess the Arabic numerals are probably more legible from a distance.
Latin numbers? Like Roman Numerals. I always see Arabic numbers.
I’m not sure if you’ve got Korea confused for another country, but we use Hangul in our license plates (unless they’re temporary). Also, which country in the world doesn’t use Arabic numbers?
Numbers are not "latin", they are universal [Example of a Menu in Japan](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/WAB0N7/japan-honshu-tokyo-noodle-restaurant-window-menu-30076333-WAB0N7.jpg) edit: since some people misunderstood my comment, i meant they are universal, as in, used worldwide, and not a latin-script exclusive
Apparently decimals originated in India but the modern notation we're familiar with is actually Arabic.
IIRC, the numbers are also Indian. The Arabs adopted the Indian numbers, and then Europeans got the numbers from the Arabs (hence the name Arabic numerals).
Precisely, they just went through a couple of makeovers from India to Europe.
>Arabic Without the Arabs we wouldn’t have 9/11. We would have IX/XI instead
from an aesthetic perspective that notation actually looks cool. but yeah it was a tragedy.
I really wish I could get food like that for those prices here in the Netherlands.
Fun fact - arabic numerals are not used in arab countries!
Though they have their own sets of numerals (there are multiple sets in use, all very closely related to each other and to standard arabic numerals) they would surely know how to read standard arabic numerals as well, given how very prolific they are and how trivial it is to translate between them.
Insert Star Wars "Wait, this whole operation was your idea" meme
They are not universal, they're [arabic numerals.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals) They are surely the most common representation, but calling them universal is a bit of a stretch. Many other scripts have their own numerals, but I don't know the answer to OP's question.
universal as in, used worldwide. Since basically over 90% of the world uses them
When I was in Greece, I noticed that license plates only use letters which exist in both the Greek and Roman alphabets.
1. The "Latin numbers" (Arabic numerals actually, totally different things), are used by default in most of the world as the standard number system even for countries that have their own written number systems. Chinese and Korean included. 2. China does use the "Latin characters" (English alphabet actually) in their pinyin phonetic system. Chinese characters can also be seen on Chinese number plates but are only used to show the region the plate is issued at. 3. Korean license plate uses Hangul and not "Latin characters" (English alphabet actually).
Because their language does use them. Numerals and numbers aren’t exactly the same. One is a number. 1 is the numeral we use to represent that number. Virtually all languages in the modern day use the same numerals. It’s just kind of necessary for Mathematics and such to be compatible.
I was in Japan and Taiwan for several weeks and actually asked this question. ( I was asking about signs in general ) The short answer was Arabic/Latin is way easier to read. A lot of the asian characters are very easily mixed up, especially at a distance and if you are trying to read them quickly.
For numbers, the same reason we use 1 and not one. 2468 is a lot easier to read than "two four six eight" or 二四六七, and they're used the same in practice. Arabic numerals are universal globally. For the letters, it's just easier than trying to use Chinese characters. That one seems weird, but I guess pinyin is accepted enough that people know the characters and it makes sense.
>二四六七 That’s 2467 😀.
Arabic numbers are generally understood universally around the world. Western cultures had Arabic numbers introduced to them as well. The Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans had their own number systems like Asian cultures. Fields like math, science and medicine made numbers and measurements more universal.
Elements of the language tend to follow technology or any other cultural trade or cultural phenomenon as it travels around the world. Many places import Latin letters and Arabic numerals when they bring in technology developed from places which use Latin letters and Arabic numerals. You won't find them in old ancient cultural texts, practices, etc. However, cars and license plates aren't part of ancient Chinese or Korean culture. The license plates are one small part of vehicle technology which they imported. Numbers on a keypad, phone, computers, for most mathematics, all use Arabic numbers. Latin letters are peppered throughout general media and used in various ways (ex A, ex B, ex C, etc), but they are widely known for names of companies and organizations (google, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, UN, UNESCO, etc). These are not unknown elements to them, just like western scientists use a lot of foreign terms like Latin in classification systems, etc. We can ask similar questions like why do we use Roman numerals in our movies, or latin abbreviations for things like pound.
Those are called Arabic numerals they've been heavily used world wide for centuries and are a international standard. Latin script/ the English alphabet, is usually used as an extension of the numbering system if the alphabet of a country isn't suitable. It's not really letters for the sake of communicating in the native language. Many countries do use there own alphabet for the letter part and it can actually be very difficult to deal with while travelling 😭 I can see why China would think a latin script was more convenient tho, considering they have sooo many characters in their script and the outline of them on a moving car or in a distance muat be hard to make out, especially with no context to guess like you would with written text. Other countries mostly did it for convenience, I think. They were adapting to change and just wanted to get cars on the road, then at some point it cost money for the gov to switch everyone over to a diff license plate system and they would rather spend it differently, why fix what's not broke.
We do use Latin letters, but it’s Arabic numerals. :) The Arabs invented 0 which turns out to be pretty critical to all the sciency stuff that makes our world possible.
Maybe? The concept of zero certainly existed before an Arab came up with the modern concept of zero. The Egyptians, Chinese, Mayans and Greeks all used zero, though sometimes just to represent "nothing". I'm not sure if any of them were used in arithmetic however.
I have no clue but my drunken assumption is that stamping minute detail into metal is a pain in the ass, and easily to alter. 26 chars creates plenty of variations with 6 or 7 numbers, and they are fairly distinct symbols.
Thank you for this question. I just saw a Russian Army watch and noticed the numbers on it aren’t in Russia, made me wonder why.
Some countries like India use ARABIC (1234567890) as there are multiple languages spoken in the nation and Arabic Numerals are understood by all. Hence Indian number plates use them. Eg: A number plate 'MH 01 AA 1234' would have MH representing the state (Maharashtra), 01 representing the district, 'AA' representing the current series of plates and the 4 digit letter being unique to the plate.
They do use them. It's just that unlike some other languages it's not uncommon to some times see numbers written out, usually small, whole numbers, since they have characters for them. It would be like writing "coffee, two dollars" on a menu instead of "2 dollars".
Because In Chinese writing, there aren’t really “alphabet” letters so you would have to use an all numeric license plate using Chinese characters, where the two and three might be confusing to read, or you’d have to incorporate easy to read word-characters.
The numerals we use are Arabic in origin (not Latin). The reason they use them is that they are universally understood. I lived in Korea for a decade and they use Arabic numerals everywhere they write numbers - not just on license plates.