Capital numbers puzzler
A year or so ago someone left a watch in one of my classrooms. It has hanzi for the numbers, but they are a little strange:
See if you can figure out what is going on here, and then click on “Continue Reading” to see if you are right.
Syz’s recent post on capital numbers (大写数字) had these:
壹贰叁肆伍陆柒捌玖拾
But on this watch, some of the numbers are capital and some are not. And two of the capitals aren’t what we’d expect.
I’ll let the commenters tell us what’s going on here, as (now that I know what the answer is) I’m pretty sure someone will take one look at it and know right off the bat.
Wouldn’t we expect 伍 instead of 五? Or is that done only in more specialized situations?
Cool. Did you keep the watch?
As far as I know, the numbers on the watch face are the Japanese versions of the capital numbers.
The character 壱 is a Japanese variant for "one." I still don't get why half the numbers are 大写 and the other half are 小写, even if it is Japanese. There are a bunch of Japanese clocks out there, but they don’t do it this way. (Maybe because they’re meant for foreigners?)
@jdmartinsen: Interesting! The source I found the characters in (PG O’Neill’s Essential Kanji) doesn’t have 伍, but looking further led me to this page, where we have the other capitals the same as in Chinese, except for 陆=陸 and 柒=漆.
@Kevin: Yes.
伍 (and most of the other Chinese capital numbers) are “obsolete” according to Wikipedia.
@Randy: So how do you explain the capital numbers being used for only half the numbers on the watch face?
(I submitted a comment earlier… I’m not sure if it got eaten?)
… obsolete as Japanese formal numbers, I mean.
Hmm, that’s interesting. I thought it was a night/day kind of split.
@John: The page on 大å at the Japanese Wikipedia gives 1,2,3 and 10 as in-use formal numbers, with 5 used in mahjong tiles (!) and other scattered situations. Doesn’t explain why they chose formal numbers for a clock face, but having done so, it looks like they just went with the standard set.
There’s nothing worse than missing an appointment because some mischievous soul altered the numbers on your watch by adding extra strokes while you weren’t looking. Japanese watchmakers understand this. Hence the capital numbers.
My guess (which seems wrong) is that this watch has 二简字 (a second-stage simplified character. Chinese wiki page (http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E4%BA%8C%E7%AE%80%E5%AD%97). The second stage simplified character for 贰 is similar to 弐, but is even simpler!
As people have pointed out, these hanzi are consistent with Japanese usage of “capital” numbers. As for why they only use “capitals” for 1, 2, 3, and 10 in Japanese, I suspect it’s because 一, 二, and 三 are so simple and similar as to be confusing when stacked vertically. 十 is arguably of similar simplicity and could be confused (try 一+十=干?) and so is written with the unmistakable 拾 variant.
@Aaron: Good point. Although 十 + 一 looks more like 土, no?
伍 is still in use as a family name.
John: Your previous comment was all garbled due to link issues somehow relating to the adso plugin. I fixed it.
Not quite relevant, I thought I’d share a Fossil watch I bought years and years ago, maybe 2002 or 2001.
The seconds are hanzi LCD on the face. Picked it up at a Fossil store in Orlando.
One reason to keep “capital” numbers for one, two, and three is that they are easily susceptible to malicious change. You can change an 一 to 二，三 or 十 with a stroke or two of a pen. The other numbers are not so easily modified. I suspect this is the reason that the Japanese only use capital numbers for 1, 2, 3 and 10.