 APPENDIX B:  On The Character Specific Representation of Numbers:


 For most practical email exchanges it is enough to type "1987" to communicate
 to the reader the year nineteen-hundred-and-eighty-seven.  But for a machine
 to interpret the Arabic numbers into Ethiopic, "1987" becomes a highly 
 ambiguous sequence of numbers.  The following is offered to present a method to
 represent Ethiopic numbers with Arabic for simple computer translation.  

 In our example, "1987", though understood as a Christian year could easily
 have been a part of a phone number, a street address, or most anything in 
 another context.  As there are 20 Ethiopic numbers (21 if the letter "xi",
 used for 1,000 is counted) we are presented with the problem of interpreting
 then, which numbers the typist had intended to communicate.

 In example:  is 1987 to be read as the  6 Ethiopic numbers 10-100-9-100-80-7.
 Or the 5 numbers 10-9-100-80-7, or the 4 numbers 10-9-80-7 , 10-9-8-7,
 1-90-8-7, or finally (skipping a few other possibilities) 1-9-8-7.

 Writing each of the 20 Ethiopic numbers discreetly avoids the ambiguity problem
 and the Christian year 1987 is written as 109100807. 

 It may seem a little ungainly to have to type 9 Arabic numbers so that a
 computer can understand that 5 Ethiopic numbers are desired.  This problem
 can be affected slightly by applying some of the same philosophy that was
 presented for denoting the forms of consonants for Ethiopic letters.
 With the same method applied here the numbers 1,2,3,4...9 are thought of
 as consonants and the vowels are then 0, 00, 000, and 0000 to denote the
 forms "tens", "hundreds", "thousands", and "ten-thousands" (analogous to
 "g`Iz", ka`Ib , sals, and rab`I).  We then have a fidel for numbers : 


 ones   tens   hundreds  thousands  ten-thousands ....
          0       00        000         0000

  1      10      100       1000        10000
  2      20      200       2000        20000
  3      30      200       3000        30000
  4      40      400       4000        40000
  .
  .
  9      90      900       9000        90000


 and we may write the same 5 Ethiopic numbers for the year 1987 with the
 8 Arabic numbers 10900807.  It is intrinsic in this system that when the
 number of zeros, 0, following a one (1,2,3...9) is greater than 2, that
 2 Ethiopic numbers are being represented.  That is, it is understood that
 200 is equivalent to the Ethiopic 2-100 and 2000 is 20-100.  If one wishes 
 to use "xi" as a number, 2000 should then be written as 2xi.  A small computer 
 algorithm that determines Ethiopic numbers with the system described, is 
 available from the authors.

 As a last thought on the representation of Ethiopic numbers with Arabic
 we suggest that if commas "," or decimals "." be used to denote orders
 of a thousand as in $5,362 , that the number be interpreted strictly as a
 summation.  In this instance 5,362 = 5000 + 300 + 60 + 2 and is written in
 Ethiopic as either the 5 characters 50-100-400-60-2 or 5-xi-400-60-2.



