[zajio1am]

'Arabic' numbers comes originally from India, from Brahmi numerals. And Brahmi script was left to right. So big-endian was 'normal' even originally, it was Arabs who kept left-to-right numbers within right-to-left script (and therefore use little-endian relative to direction of Arabic script).

[zephen]

> it was Arabs who kept left-to-right numbers within right-to-left script

Do they do this? I thought they swapped this as well.

[Narishma]

There are actually two ways to read numbers in Arabic.

The most common is to start from the most significant digit and read left-to-right until the last two digits, which you then read right-to-left.

A less common alternative is to read right-to-left starting from the least significant digit.

[zephen]

Interesting! How do you know which alternative is being used?

[Narishma]

To give an example, you could read 1234 as either 'one thousand and two hundred and four and thirty' or 'four and thirty and two hundred and one thousand'.

Now that I think about it though, I've only seen the latter way used for the year in a date.