Edit: Latin letters and numbers might not be the right word. I meant letters such as AaBbCc and numbers such as 123.
In: 3829
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.
Thanks Geneva Convention, now I can confidently drive my car in China with my limited knowledge of Latin!
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.
Got bad news for you. Our numerals aren’t Latin, they’re Arabic. If they were Latin they’d be all Is Vs & Xs.
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.
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.
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