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Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late 10th century. It was used in the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used in Russia as late as the early 18th century, when Peter the Great replaced it with Arabic numerals as part of his civil script reform initiative. Cyrillic numbers played a role in Peter the Great's currency reform plans, too, with silver wire kopecks issued after 1696 and mechanically minted coins issued between 1700 and 1722 inscribed with the date using Cyrillic numerals. By 1725, Russian Imperial coins had transitioned to Arabic numerals. The Cyrillic numerals may still be found in books written in the Church Slavonic language.
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General description
The system is a quasi-decimal alphabetic system, equivalent to the Ionian numeral system but written with the corresponding graphemes of the Cyrillic script. The order is based on the original Greek alphabet rather than the standard Cyrillic alphabetical order.
A separate letter is assigned to each unit (1, 2, ... 9), each multiple of ten (10, 20, ... 90), and each multiple of one hundred (100, 200, ... 900). To distinguish numbers from text, a titlo ( ҃ ) is sometimes drawn over the numbers, or they are set apart with dots. The numbers are written as pronounced in Slavonic, generally from the high value position to the low value position, with the exception of 11 through 19, which are written and pronounced with the ones unit before the tens; for example, ЗІ (17) is "семнадсять" (literally seven-on-ten, cf. the English seven-teen).
Examples:
To evaluate a Cyrillic number, the values of all the figures are added up: for example, ѰЗ is 700 + 7, making 707. If the number is greater than 999 (ЦЧѲ), the thousands sign (҂) is used to multiply the number's value: for example, ҂Ѕ is 6000, while ҂Л҂В is parsed as 30,000 + 2000, making 32,000. To produce larger numbers, a modifying sign is used to encircle the number being multiplied.
Glagolitic numerals
Glagolitic numerals are similar to Cyrillic numerals except that numeric values are assigned according to the native alphabetic order of the Glagolitic alphabet. Glyphs for the ones, tens, and hundreds values are combined to form more precise numbers, for example, ⰗⰑⰂ is 500 + 80 + 3 or 583. As with Cyrillic numerals, the numbers 11 through 19 are typically written with the ones digit before the glyph for 10; for example ⰅⰊ is 6 + 10, making 16. Whereas Cyrillic numerals use modifying signs for numbers greater than 999, some documents attest to the use of Glagolitic letters for 1000 through 6000, although the validity of 3000 and greater is questioned.