linguistic:paraphrasing
History

The first true written positional numeral system is considered to be the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. This system was established by the 7th century in India, but was not yet in its modern form because the use of the digit zero had not yet been widely accepted. Instead of a zero sometimes the digits were marked with dots to indicate their significance, or a space was used as a placeholder. The first widely acknowledged use of zero was in 876. The original numerals were very similar to the modern ones, even down to the glyphs used to represent digits.

By the 13th century, Western Arabic numerals were accepted in European mathematical circles (Fibonacci used them in his Liber Abaci). They began to enter common use in the 15th century. By the end of the 20th century virtually all non-computerized calculations in the world were done with Arabic numerals, which have replaced native numeral systems in most cultures.