How come there are several widely used alphabets in the world (Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese etc) but only one set of numbers (Arabic) most of the world uses?

Question

While Latin Alphabet is dominant, Chinese and Arabic letters are widely used as well, along with several others. But most everyone in the world uses Arabic numerals, even though there are others. Why is that?

In: Other

Answer 1

While it’s true that most of the world still uses exclusively Arabic numerals, there are other systems that still exist. Consider how common Roman numerals are/were. We use Chinese numbers in Japanese quite a bit. As well:

一二三四五六七八九十廿百千万億兆 etc

But in general, you’re right – it’s mostly Latin.