Terminology for Digits

Many writing systems (scripts) have distinct sets of decimal digit characters with distinct shapes. Confusion may arise regarding digits because certain terms are ambiguous or because it is unclear how best to refer to a particular set of digits. The following terminology is provided for clarification.

Term	Example	Explanation/Description	Synonyms
Decimal digits	0123456789U+0030..U+0039 ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩U+0660..U+0669	Digits that can be used to form decimal-radix numbers. There are several sets of decimal digits, some of which are described here. SeeTable 22-3, "Script-Specific Decimal Digits," in theUnicode Standard for a complete list.
ASCII digits	0123456789U+0030..U+0039	Commonly used with Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and many other scripts, including some non-European scripts. Used in alternation with native digits in scripts that have them. (Some scripts with native digits make only limited use of ASCII digits.) Infrequently used in many of the remaining scripts.	Western digits, Latin digits,European digits
Native digits		Belong to a particular writing system. May or may not be in modern customary use with that writing system.
Arabic digits		Ambiguous term: Decimal-positional notation spread from India through the Arabic world to Europe. Arabic digits may refer to ASCII digits (because Europe got them from Arabic speakers) or to the digits of the Arabic script.
Arabic-script digits	٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩U+0660..U+0669	Commonly used with the Arabic language in most but not all Arabic-speaking countries.	Arabic-Indic digits
	۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹U+06F0..U+06F9	Used with Persian, Urdu, Sindhi (Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India). There is substantial variation in glyphs (shapes) for the Eastern Arabic-Indic digits, especially for the digits four, five, six, and seven.	Eastern Arabic-Indic digits
Hindi digits		Ambiguous term: Used for Devanagari digits. Also often used for Arabic-script digits, because those are called "Hindi digits" in the Arabic language.
Devanagari digits	०१२३४५६७८९U+0966..U+096F	Devanagari (Used for Hindi and a number of other languages.)
Indic digits	०१२३४५६७८९U+0966..U+096F	Devanagari
	০১২৩৪৫৬৭৮৯U+09E6..U+09EF	Bangla/Assamese
	௦௧௨௩௪௫௬௭௮௯U+0BE6..U+0BEF	Tamil
	Etc.	The term "Indic digits" is a cover term applying to many distinct, script-specific sets of digits prevalent in South Asia, particularly in India.

Note: The existence of script-specific digits in a writing system does not suffice to indicate that those are the preferred digits for modern use. Information on preferred digit use can be found inCLDR.