My understanding, coming from a professor of Arabic in Cairo, is that Arabs
(or Egyptians, at least) say that the numerals they use are called
"hindi"--ie, "Indian"--in Arabic. Granted, however, he was unable to
explain why Europeans' digits are called "Arabic" and why Arabs don't use
Arabic numerals.
Also, both sets of glyphs are used throughout the Arab world, not just in
Egypt.
As for the change from LTR Indic to RTL Arabic to LTR European scripts, I
tend to doubt it played much part in changing the glyphs, considering that
Arabs still write their numbers LTR.
Jeff
>> Today's European digits like 0, 1, 2, and 3 are actually closer to
>> the original Hindu glyphs from 1000 years ago than to true Arabic
>> numerals.
>
> I think that the early (Italian? Spanish?) mathematicians who adopted the
> "Arabic" digits actually used the Arabic glyphs
> I wondered too whether these glyph had undergone 45 degree rotations during
> their travel from LTR Indic scripts through RTL Arabic script to LTR European
> scripts.
>
> _ Marco
>
>
