John Cowan wrote:

> Marco Cimarosti scripsit:
>
> > Consequently, Indians write 12345678901 as "1234,5678,901"
> because, in
> > Indian English, the number corresponds to this phrase:
> >
> > "One thousands two hundreds thirty-four (1234) crores
> > five thousands six hundreds seventy-eight (5678) lakhs
> > nine hundreds and one (901)"
>
> Is it not rather 123,4567,8901, read "one hundred and
> twenty-three crores, four thousand five hundred and
> sixty-seven lakhs, eight thousand nine hundred and one"?
>
> According to my sources 1 lakh = 10^4.

Ooops! I miscounted the digits in my source:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0508791.html

Which, anyway, doesn't match your source, as it says that a lakh (or "lac")
is 100,000 = 10^5.

So, the subdivision according to InfoPlease should be:

1,23456,78,901

But that 5-digit group makes me think that I have some other thing wrong!
Are there no Indians on the Qalam list? Come on, stop laughing at this
discussion and tell us how it actually works!

> In addition, I doubt that the North American habit of
> omitting "and" in "one hundred and twenty-three"
> has spread to India.

Oh, that was a perfectly correct Italian English. :-)


_ Marco