Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas: Toward a Global HistoryMain MenuThe Spanish PacificThe China Trade Era19th-Century US PacificTimelineby Andrea LedesmaGalleryCollection of all images, documents, and photos featured on this site.AcknowledgementsCaroline Franka1a5e7e9a2c3dba76ecb2896a93bf66ac8d1635e
Writing Numbers
12016-06-24T08:02:17-07:00Andrea Ledesma3398f082e76a2c1c8a9101d91a66e1d764540d3484018plain2017-02-02T06:04:24-08:00Andrea Ledesma3398f082e76a2c1c8a9101d91a66e1d764540d34Regarding the ways of writing numbers, 22 pages are devoted to explaining with examples. The first page starts with the heading “號寫數目定式” (Standard format of writing numbers). It explains the rules as: “凡寫數目者，壹至九皆寫一個，拾至百兩個，百數以上叁個，千至萬數者五個，逢號字不入數目之內。” (When writing numbers, only one word is used for numbers one to nine, two words for ten to one hundred, three words for one hundred or above, and five words for thousand to ten thousand, and the words explicitly indicating tens digit, hundreds digit, etc are not included in the numbers.) It is then followed by examples from “壹/1；貳/2……” to “壹千/1000；壹萬/10,000” and ends with the explanatory note “草法数目同上tso fǎ sho mǒ [counter] tong [along] xȧṅg” (the writing method of cursive scripts is the same as above). About the writing method, Chinese characters and Arabic numbers are all included from “壹” to “拾弍”. After that, only Chinese characters and transliterations are provided: “弍拾/yee；叁拾/sanme；肆拾/scue；伍拾/hunne；陸拾/louc；捌拾/patt；玖拾/cow；壹伯/yatt pauc；壹千/yat sceen；壹萬/shaup sceen”. The last part of this section bears the heading “以下年期月份名色 y hia nien ky yŭt fun ming shic [custom]” (expressions of date and time are as follows). For months, only the Chinese and English terms such as “正月/January” are presented. For other terms, Cantonese transliterations and English explanations are included:
一年 ye nien/one year；一日 ye yat/one day；一月 yue/one month；一時 shee/one hour；息閒 sic hien/minute (the author’s note: “閒” has the same meaning of “間”)；礼拜 lai pai/week；使頓 shit tun/Fxcs；壹箱 ye seaung/one chest；壹把 ye pa/one bunch；壹尺 ye chȧiu/one cubit；壹對 ye tȯë/one pair；壹斤 ye cun/one cattie；壹兩 ye lëȧnge/one twelve mace；壹錢 yĕ chien/one mace；壹厘 yĕ ly/one cash；弍分 lh fun {fuèn}/two Cents；壹疋 ye pǎt/1ps；疋字 pat [piece] tsu [charact] /ps；壹箱 ye sȧu̇ng/chest, one box；這壹箱 che ye saung/this one box, one chest；法士口薩 fǎ su sat/First sort；昔斤口薩 se cun sort/Second sort；口撻薩 tart sort/third sort
