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This is intentional. They're called Arabic numerals for a reason - when they were imported to Europe to replace Roman numerals, they weren't flipped. This is why mental arithmetic is harder than it needs to be.

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Nope. These numerals got to Arabic from India, where writing is LTR, and the digit order was unchanged during that transition and the transition to Europe. The order we use is the original order. They're called Hindu-Arabic numerals [1] for a reason, and in Arabic the equivalent [2] are called Indian numbers (أَرْقَام هِنْدِيَّة) [3]!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals

[3] https://translate.google.com/?sl=ar&tl=en&text=%D8%A3%D9%8E%...

I didn't know, thanks for the correction :)

The Arabs must have switched it around then

No one switched it around, that's my point. The digit order everyone uses is the one best suited to mental arithmetic in LTR languages, where the most significant digit is first. See the book Secrets of Mental Math by Arthur Benjamin. It's also the best suited to getting a rough idea of the number quickly in LTR languages. That's because the digit order everyone uses was designed for LTR languages.

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