Tobias Schoel wrote: > Roman Numerals derive from a alphabetic writing system and thus are > "words" consisting of single "letters" with a meaning based on its > identity and position.
The Roman system is definitely not alphabetic, but simply additive like the Egyptian system. It was based on 5 instead than on 10, and it consists in repeating a symbol until we get to a number for which another symbol exists: I II III IIII V. The subtraction rule came later; one of the motivations was to save space in inscriptions: XC is much better than LXXXX in this respect. The rules as we use them now were fixed in the Middle Ages. Being non alphabetic, each symbol has different values, depending on the context. This is very different from the Ionian system, where alpha is 1, beta is 2 and so on; iota is 20, kappa is 30, and so on. The original form of the Roman "digits" evolved from the Etruscan shape until they became identical to some letters. For example, the digit for 1000 was a circle divided into quarters. I'll think to a way for adding the /ActualText to the macros I showed you. Ciao Enrico -- Enrico Gregorio + Dipartimento di Informatica + Tel: +39 045 8027937 enrico.grego...@univr.it + Università degli Studi di Verona + (grego...@math.unipd.it) + Strada le Grazie 15 / I-37134 Verona + Fax: +39 045 8027928 -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
