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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Japanese

I removed the sentence "Particular number names exist up to a billion" becuase I think it looks like a joke.

  1. up to which billion?
  2. The cite given Japanese_numerals#Basic_numbering_in_Japanese says no such thing; the later cite Japanese_numerals#Powers_of_10 contradicts it. jnestorius(talk) 02:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I think they actually exist up to much higher than that (an American quindecillion, by the looks of it), but only in myriads, not thousands. Honestly, until coming here (I've a tiny bit of instruction in the language) I'd thought you just said "myriad myriad." Twin Bird 08:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Japanese uses the standard East Aisan system described below where you use ten hundred, ten-hundred, 10^4, 10x10^4, 100x10^4, 1000x10^4, 10^8, etc, with a new name at each 10^(4n) point. The highest I was taught in University Japanese was 10^12 - cho - so I can count all the way up to 10^24, or up to about 10^32 if I want to use oku cho-cho. User:jgharston

Please, please, please, a source

  • "most people outside financial spheres in the UK continue to understand and use the long-scale more effectively than what many still regard as USA usage."

We've had gobs and gobs of personal testimony by Wikipedians on both sides of this point. What we have not had is any good source citations to back up any of it.

What does the word "billion" really mean to the average Briton who is not closely connected with finance? Does "billion" really mean 1012 to the average person? Is it a hotly debated "culture war" item, like "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays" in the U. S.? Or is it just a concern of older people who, having had it drummed into their head in school and now resent its not being drummed into younger heads? Or what? Dpbsmith (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the above text from the article pending discussions / citation / resolution here. Ian Cairns 18:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I am British, live in Britain, and am nearly 40. I've never heard in 20 years billion to mean anything but the short scale. I can imagine some in the older generation (over 70) maybe using it, but even then it must be rare. The long scale is not even mentioned now at schools. Let's look at it this way, who is going to use the word billion except in official or mass media usage ? Where could you colloquially use billion as an exact number (rather than generally, eg billions of grains of sand) except in official/mass media usage, where they default to the short scale. Basically, I agree, unless a cite/ref can be shown to prove the long scale is in use somewhere in the UK, I would recommend deleting any text stating it is in constant use, etc. The best I would say (as the article currently does) is occassional usage.
The Yeti 01:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
PS Noting some of the above paragraphs, I was also taught in Australian (NSW) schools in my youth. Billion, when mentioned, was virtually always the 'American' use. To say otherwise would be disingenious The Yeti 01:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

(moved from User talk:81.86.138.31)

You write: the "traditional usage" of a billion to mean 1012 is [...] normally taught in many sectors of education. I find this extremely implausible. Can you give an example? – Smyth\talk 18:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The fact that I work in education, that I have had two generations of my own children in full-time education and that all these experiences taught / used / still use traditional (and correct) European long-scale usage. I write from experience, not some theoretical wish-point.
I deduce from this that with the mention of 'two generations of your my own children' that you are of the 'older' generation, where the long scale may still come to mind more often than the short scale. However, the article is mostly trying to clarify the commonest current language usage among British people. The use of "correct meaning" is meaningless in this context. Which sector of education are you in ? The Yeti 21:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no "correct" meaning; this is a question of usage. Are you saying that you teach, and your children were taught, that "billion" is 10^12, to the exclusion of 10^9? Or are you simply saying that children are taught that both meanings of the word are in use and so they should be careful? I'm sure nobody would disagree with the latter. – Smyth\talk 16:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree about your idea of correct v. usage. Mathmatically I contend that 10 to the power 12 IS correctly designated as the "next" division above a million, and that 10 to the power 9 is no more significant than a thousand times 100 (100,000).
Sorry this is twaddle, and irrelevant to the article. This article does list both long and short scale terms for 109 (under the paragraph 'Comparison'). What the current argument is about is not the mathematical terminology, but its use in UK common language. Please prove that your usage in language is "correct" and that the short scale is not, and please do so using references. Besides, no-one thinks 105 is significant enough for a new name; but 106 is designated 'million', and one can argue (as in the USA) that 109 would also have a new name (in this case short scale 'billion'). The Yeti 21:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
However, leaving that aside: - In the UK children ARE commonly taught that both meanings are in use: further they are taught that the 10 power 9 usage is predominatly USA and that one should take care because it is a)in existance b)possible to confuse c)possibly an incorect usage mathmatically.

The "incorrectness" to which you refer is surely etymological, not mathematical. It would certainly be more consistent if (Greek prefix)-llion meant 10^(6*(Greek prefix value)) rather than 10^(3 + 3*(Greek prefix value)), but there are many worse inconsistencies in the English language, and if an overwhelming majority of people uses a less consistent definition then you just have to live with it (or avoid the word completely)

You never answered my original question: what are children taught about 10^12? Are they taught that this is the "real" meaning of the word "billion", and that they should actually use it as such? Or are they simply taught to avoid the word because of its ambiguity? – Smyth\talk 17:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I had thought I HAD answered your question, and quite clearly too.
No you had not. The question asked was "Are you saying "billion" means only 1012 and is taught/used to the exclusion of 109? Or are you saying that children are taught that both meanings of the word are in use, and so they should be careful?" The former needs citations, but the latter no-one has argued with. (And as I am British & live in Britain, the former seems unprovable to my experience). The Yeti 21:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
A source, a source, a source, please. If children are taught that both meanings are in use and they should be careful, surely someone, somewhere has published this in a curriculum guide or a school textbook. If there are conflicting sources, we can cite both.
I grew up in the U. S. and have no vested interest at all in this matter. I can easily believe any of the following:
  • that children are taught that a billion is 109
  • that children are taught that it is 109 but that older books and older people may use it to mean 1012
  • that it can mean either and they should be careful
  • that there are a few schools that teach that it is 1012. For all I know, there may be schools that teach children how to perform financial calculations in pounds, shillings and pence because, well, it's good mental discipline (like learning Latin) and you never know, they might come back someday
Personal testimony from individual experience is interesting, but doesn't resolve the question of what should go in the article. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding swedish usage

The statemets reagarding swedish usage in this article is wrong. It says "Sweden, where 10^9 is commonly called Milliard, a long scale term, but the short scale is used for 10^12 and above", but 10^9 is called "miljard", not milliard, and long scale is indeed used, 10^12 is called biljon for example. Battra 10:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


Change it then it's wikipedia =) -Skether

1 000 000 000 000 / Trillion

(ie) 10^12, billion or trillion depending how you look at things. The page 1000000000000 (number) page has been redirected from a page similar to 1000000000 (number) to Orders of magnitude (numbers). If you disagree with this redirect (or agree), please comment here. This comment will self-destruct in a few days ('cos it'll be redundant then). The Yeti 22:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion has now moved on to HERE. Please comment. The Yeti 13:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Another day, another poll ... this time on whether to keep the trillion page as is, or to redirect to names of large numbers. Please comment HERE. The Yeti 02:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

What do you think of merging this article with "Names of large numbers"? Mdotley 21:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This article describes two different schemes for naming large numbers. As such, it is outside the Names of large numbers article. Why do you think these articles can be merged? Ian Cairns 22:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
No. Subject is entirely different, and is not do with the names of large numbers, but rather the names of large number in different countries. The Yeti 23:09, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
The 'names' article has to rehash much of this info to explain why there are different names. This article has to give many of those names as examples of what it is talking about. So, they may technically be different subjects, but there is a whole lot of duplication between them.
Besides which, the whole issue here is that there are two different systems for the names of large numbers. OK, so we give the two different sytems in one part of the article and the names in another part. Both articles have to do both things. Why should the whole issue have to be rehashed on each of two different pages? Look at both pages, and you'll see what I mean. Mdotley 02:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Still disagree. The article, whether there is duplication or not (and I think the duplication is minor) have different foci and intentions (which you've just admitted). The Names of Large Numbers article is already long enough without lumping this one into it, and does not clearly explain the difference between the long & short scales. Why do you wish to merge ? It is a clumsy attempt to tidy things up when they don't need it. The Yeti 02:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
You're right that it doesn't explain them clearly -- but it doesn't make sense without it, and the current attempts to explain it are poorly done. By the time that page could be fixed up, IMHO, you'd have most of the good content from this page. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any consensus for the change -- or against it for that matter, as you and I are the only ones discussing it.
Why merge? B/c that there is enough overlap that the merge would consolidate the good information and ease the anti-vandalism maintenance burden. Mdotley 04:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm against the merge. The overlap isn't onerous and the articles are sufficiently different in scope to remain separate, I think. - DavidWBrooks 12:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Fine, you guys probably spend more time here than I do, anyway. Informal proposal withdrawn. Mdotley 00:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
PS, I've stopped watching this page, so please leave a note on my talk page if you want to drag me back into the discussion. :-) Mdotley 00:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

United Nations (UN)

Is there an official use on the United Nations? Some documents in english by UN use Billion meaning 109, but the documents in spanish use sometimes "Mil Millones" (thousand millions). Godot 20:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Italian use

"Colloquially, bilione can mean both 109 and 1012": actually I'm Italian, and I've never heard people using bilione meaning 109

Table

I've removed this from the historical table

1994
Italy confirmed their official usage of the long scale. (Direttiva CE 1994 n. 55, page 12 (in Italian) (ref: Direttiva CE 1994 n. 55, page 12). (in Italian) ).

The reference uses the words, but does not describe the usage: 

                         Fattore          Prefisso Simbolo

1 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 1018 trilione esa      E
    1 000 000 000 000 000 = 1015 biliardo peta     P
        1 000 000 000 000 = 1012 bilione  tera     T
            1 000 000 000 = 109  miliardo giga     G
                1 000 000 = 106  milione  mega     M
                    1 000 = 103  mille    chilo    k

so it's certainly good evidence that the long-scale is in official use in Italy, but cannot be said to be confirmation in the way that a statement like "In all official documents, 10^12 is to be described as bilione and 10^9 as miliardo" would be. jnestorius(talk) 00:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Error

"In written communications, the simplest solution for moderately large numbers is simply to write the full amount- i.e., 1,000,000 rather than 1 milliard or 1 billion." - That should be 1,000,000,000, shouldn't it? 62.113.159.156 17:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

East Asian countries

This might not fit in "long and short", because it's not based on 10^3 or 10^6 but I've run into it many times over the last 30 years.

Korea and Japan use numbering systems based on 10^4 (yes, that's ten thousand = 10,000).

Korean example

  • 1 il
  • 10 sip
  • 100 baek
  • 1,000 chun
  • 10,000 man

So 54,000 would be 5 man 4 chun. And 987,000 would be 98 man 7 chun

It really gets interesting with larger numbers:

  • 9,234,678 is 923 man + 4 chun 6 baek 7 sip 8
  • 25,548,324 is 2,554 man + 8,324 chun
  1. Should we call this the East Asian scale?
  2. Translation problems are easy to make, because the 3-digit grouping of the non-Asian world and the 4-digit grouping can lead to a power-of-ten error. A large number can be inflated or deflated by a factor of 10 or 100 if the translator is in a hurry (and they usually are, at conferences). --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

clearer intro

As "bi" and "tri" mean powers of two and three, I made the logic of the long scale clear in the intro:

""billion" means "a million squared" (10^12), "trillion" means "a million to the third power" (10^18), and so on."

However, it may be just as clear to keep "million million":

""billion" means "a million million" (10^12), "trillion" means "a million to the third power" (10^18), and so on."

Harald88 09:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's interesting. I wrote a series of programming examples for a class I was preparing to teach. The examples involved choosing which base to use for short scale (1,000) or long scale (1,000,000). Some of my East Asian students need to use "4-digit scale" (10,000); see below. --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Flags

A quick note to say that I added quite a lot of changes tonight, including several copyedits and numerous flags, to the article. Perhaps I should have discussed this here beforehand - however, I hope that other interested editors can agree that the flags add a certain international flavour to this important article. If the flags do not receive general approval, then please be careful in rolling back the edits - some of the copyedits added grammatical corrections to the article. Thanks, Ian Cairns 23:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the point in adding flags, but I'm not going to remove them unless at least a few people agree with me. Also, I propose to disgroup countries using the same spelling for a word, as imho it makes them look like they share a language or something (yes, the list will grow, but if we remove the flags, less space will be used). Jalwikip 08:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Er, 'disgroup'? Please explain what you plan to do ?? Examplise it here first please. The Yeti 20:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not usually a fan of graphics in articles, but I think the flags are perfectly fine. And I think the current grouping of countries is fine, too - I didn't see any erroneous implications. - DavidWBrooks 22:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
What I meant to say (sorry for being absent a while) is that because of the grouping of countries that just happen to have the same written words for 'milliard' and 'billion', it looks like they somehow share a language, or share something else. It's currently a non-issue though, as now each country is listed separatly. Jalwikip (talk) 14:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Thousand, Million, etc

Amended the long scale definition to read "every new term greater than million", and clarified re million.

Although "thousand" doesn't fit within the "-llion" naming scheme, it is an integral part of the short scale, "thousand, million, etc". This is particularly implied by the table, and "every new term is 1 000 times greater than the previous".

The existing long scale definition did not make it explicit that million is the same in both scales. For anyone not familiar with the powers-of-10 clarifications in brackets, there is some chance that they might come away thinking that "million" is thousand x 1 000 000. HexAmp (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Estonia, respectively the post-Soviet states and the former Warsaw Pact states

Anyone knows which system Estonia use? I am Danish, but I still want to know. --[Svippong - Talk] 11:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Refered to Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Estonia. MrZaiustalk 12:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Edited the article and answered your question. H2ppyme 19:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Since Soviet Union decided  (in which year and by which act?; maybe by Stalin?)  to align the US-americain short scale usage, therefore,
in all these the post-Soviet states and former Warsaw Pact states, the short scale is latently present: "Big brother watched!"
However, since the long scale is well the common european scale (excepting Soviet Union and now the "pushover UK") the status of Latvia, Estonia and Bulgaria is unclear.
Just like actually in UK. Although financial circles, including media nowadays aligned to the short scale. "To be billionaire" sounds much better than "to be a milliardaire".
In the case of Turkey – one bets – this was a decision of the turkish "inflation" central bankers, without any legal act.
In the case of Iran: Was it a thankful act of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who decided to align to the US usage? No one knows.
I place value on this declarative statement:  There is no primary anti-americanism in my assessments. Not on your life !
Notwithstanding, the short scale will perish, because the hexadecimal billion is long-scale,  i.e. 1, 048 576 to the power two !
Modern logarithmic. Just like the good old Chuquet. None can imagine a hypothetical hexadecimal billion as 0x 400,00000 !!?
Modern binary numeration logic is stronger, even than all these US-Dollar pseudo-billionaires; e.g. like this 20th billionaire ;-)
-- Gluck 123 (talk) 20:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a linguistic issue

The discussion taking place here is a mathematical one, but shouldn't it rather be a linguistic one? The system of "numbers", as distinct from "number words", is a simple base 10 one (as are the oriental systems below incidentally). The issue under discussion here arises out of different concepts for the system for the naming of the numbers.

In the English language, in common with many others, numbering started off with unique words for the numbers from 0 to 9. The next order or magnitude was then constructed from these words with the suffix -teen or -ty added, to signify "ten". In the first half of the second millenium there was a steady evolution of the terms "hundred"s, then "thousands"s and then "million"s. It should be remembered that the gross national product of the UK in was

The general "rule" of extension of the number-labeling system is to avoid doubling up words. Labels such as "ten ten" or "ten twenty" were avoided and instead a new word was coined, such as "hundred", and the label would become "one hundred" or "two hundred" instead. Well that WOULD have been the sytem, and it would have led to the creation of a "double order" naming system.

However, in the first half of the second millenium, a complication arose. Perhaps circumstances were in a way similar to this current debate on "billion", but at that time time it revolved around the everyday usage of the term "thousand". You can still see the issue today. It is common to say "fifteen hundred" instead of "one thousand five hundred", or "nineteen hundred and sixty four", and not "one thousand nine hundred etc", or even: "fifteen hundred pounds" rather than: "one thousand five hundred pounds". But however it happened, the "two orders of magnitude" language system mutated into the "three order" system we have now, and which is today denoted by the use of commas to separate the groups of three.

Using these rules the extension of the British numbering system is logical and consistent. All was well until the "billion" issue, which comes from the needs of global economics and inflation. It also coincided pretty much with the rise of American influence after WWII. And unfortunately America is a lot bigger than Britain!

The American system simply chose to lose touch with its roots, and to start a new system over at the million point. Why? Well perhaps because if a billion means only a thousand million then you get to be a billionaire a lot faster! :P

LookingGlass (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"then you get to be a billionaire a lot faster!"   That's true.
Even Warren Buffett has to multiply his wealth by sixteen before, he'll be a true dollar-billionaire. So, currently, they are all feigned, masqueraded as "billionaires". But, it sounds good.
-- Gluck 123 (talk) 15:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Italian usage

The claim that Italy uses the long scale is probably technically true, but it's kind of misleading because the word bilione is very rare. Ordinarily one says instead mille miliardi ("thousand milliard"). --Trovatore (talk) 02:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Recent bot run

A recent bot run has adjusted the interwiki links fro this article away from the various Long and Short scales articles in various languages - across to the corresponding 'List of numbers' articles. This is incorrect. I have reverted and alerted the bot's owner. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 16:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Nielsen quotation

In the lead section, I think it's important to mention that the subject of long versus short scales is controversial and arouses emotion. This is a simple "fact about opinion." To illustrate it, I'm quoting from a British author writing in 2005 who, I think, uses language very typical of adherents to the older system. It's there merely to illustrate the controversial nature of the issue, not to prove that the long scale is better or anything of the sort.

Is that clear enough from the context, or to people think it is important to dig out an example of someone arguing in favor of the short scale? Dpbsmith (talk) 14:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that quote supports the paragraph very much, personally. It comes across as one guy saying, quite calmly, that there are different ways of looking at some words - hardly a patriotically inspired controversy. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... Even though the language is civil and the argument is rational, I thought "the elegant and logical British system" and "in the American system, the nonsense starts..." expressed both a value judgement and a national connection. I'll see what else I can find. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Usage in Serbia

People in Serbia do not use long scale. Some time ago, I was talking with my friends about how they are naming numbers, and everybody was saying this (and this is what we learn in school):

One
Thousand = 10^3
Milion = 10^6
Miliard = 10^9
Billion = 10^12
Trillion = 10^15
Quadrillion = 10^18
etc...

Only one guy, who was in some kind of math specialized high school, was mention billiard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.110.207.176 (talk) 13:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... the above needs a proper source, if it's really true. I hope it isn't - it's confusing enough to have a long and a short scale; this is a third version. (E.g., short scal trillion = 10^12, serbian trillion = 10^15, long scale trillion = 10^18).--Noe (talk) 15:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
OK, I will try to contact somebody from Faculty of Math or other valid source to confirm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.110.207.176 (talk) 20:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Was this ever resolved? This makes usages of quadrillion meaning 1012, 1015, 1018 and 1024. It's a bit like "zillion"! - With this amount of confusion, I suggest we just use powers of ten for anything above a million. Dbfirs 11:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Commas

Judging from the terminology, I'm guessing long scale goes as follows [Note: Reads best in Edit mode for some reason...]:

1 = one
10 = ten
100 = hundred
1,000 = thousand
10,000 = ten thousand
100,000 = hundred thousand
1,000,000 = million
10,000,000 = ten million
100,000,000 = hundred million
1000,000,000 = thousand million
1,0000,000,000 = billion
10,0000,000,000 = ten billion
100,0000,000,000 = hundred billion
1000,0000,000,000 = thousand billion
1,0000,0000,000,000 = trillion
10,0000,0000,000,000 = ten trillion
100,0000,0000,000,000 = hundred trillion
1000,0000,0000,000,000 = thousand trillion
1,0000,0000,0000,000,000 = quadrillion
10,0000,0000,0000,000,000 = ten quadrillion
100,0000,0000,0000,000,000 = hundred quadrillion
etc...

Am I right? 75.118.170.35 (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope. A long scale billion is 1×1012, so the sequences after
1,000,000,000 = thousand million

goes

10,000,000,000 = ten thousand million
100,000,000,000 = hundred thousand million
1,000,000,000,000 = billion

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

"Most other countries?"

Isn't it kind of arrogant to say this, when you mean "most linguistic descendends of Europe or Southwest Asia?" Admittedly, this is a fair bit of the world, but it leaves out a chunk of Africa, several Pacific Island nations, and most of South and Southeast Asia. India, China, Japan, and Korea are mentioned as exceptions, but these are only the countries most familiar to Americans - do Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka use the long scale? (I honestly don't know; please don't try to break my case by pointing out that one or two of them do when the article says "most.") What about sub-Saharan African countries that use Khosian or Bantu languages? What about Malaysia, Indonesia, and the various independent Polynesian states? Not to mention all of the sub-national linguistic entities in Russia, Canada, the US, China, Australia, and India especially, among many other countries - it's not as though they never use large numbers. I mean, it really does seem very Eurocentric. Twin Bird 08:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, it only says most, not all. But how can we list every country in the world when quite frankly no one here really knows ? It is just a shorthand phrase. Suggest something better if you wish - but to avoid another edit war (!), let's discuss it here first ! If any users from countries not listed know the word for billion in their languages, add them to the list. The Yeti 02:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Amended terminolgy now. Hope this helps The Yeti 22:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good point. In Chinese numbers are based on ten-thousand's(104.(pronunced as "Wan" in Mandarin) So hundred thousand is called "shi wan" (ten ten-thousand), million 106 is called "bai wan" (hundred ten-thousand), 107 as "qian wan" (thousand ten-thousand), and the next level is Yi 108, the cycle repeats adding the ten, hundred, and thousand in front of the level. However since SI prefixes are in thousand's 103, the government(both Taiwan and mainland) made translations that are inconsistant with daily usages. (enclosed with Chinese SI prefixes, at least you can check what they are). [[1]] p.s: As far as I know, Koreans have the same system as Chinese, with different prounaciations. Oscar Liu at 7:03 May 14, 2007 GMT

The lead begins:
The long and short scales are two different numerical systems used throughout the world:
And the lead does not mention that other scales are used in e.g. China. I think this info should somehow be included in the lead, or at least a small opening should be made. Suggestions?--Noe (talk) 08:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Evidence of use of squares sytem?

I had been taught (in Australia) that the long system was actually based on squares - that is that a billion is a million million (10 to the power 12), a trillion a billion billion (power 24) etc. In counting you thus 'use up' each name - hundred, thousand, million, billion,trillion etc before you use the next one, so that for example you would have one hundred thousand million billion trillion quadrillion quintilian as the name of 10 to the power 191, and one sextillion the name of 10 to the power 192. I understnad one system of naming large numbers in Chinese follows this system. Cartophilatelist (talk) 07:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

THAT would require a source! Honestly, I think an Australian maths teacher here just imagined what the long scale MIGHT have been like, as a (quite ingenious, actually) alternative to the short scale that as far as I understand from the article is the prevalent in Australia.--Noe (talk) 08:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Is anything in Archive 3, top of page, of any use ? The Yeti (talk) 22:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes it's about Ausralian usage; I've now read most of it. But I haven't found anything on the squares system there; I still think that is a misunderstanding.--Noe (talk) 13:58, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

English Billion a THOUSAND times greater than US Billion

For a subject as well-masticated as this one, it is surprising that an important detail has not been more adequately dealt with. Experiment: go and ask a naïve subject: “Which is bigger, an American Billion or an English Billion?” If they reply correctly that the English one is, then ask them “By how much?” You will probably find that most people don't know. In fact, from my experience, most people, hearing the phonemic set “illions”, just assume that the amounts are very large, but there is not much to be made of it. In fact, an English Billion is a THOUSAND TIMES larger than the one adopted by her erstwhile colony. That would throw anybody's paperwork out. The gap grows more immense as the numbers become larger. The English Trillion is a full MILLION times larger than that of the US. And so it goes, the discrepancy between the English and American variants grows exponentially as the hierarchy ascends. This fact is the most salient in the whole discussion, and while it is implicit in the material included in the table, it would be illuminating to add a column on the far right which would spell out the scope of the discrepancy. Myles325a 10:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it should be more clearly spelled out, but I don't know how salient it is in the workings of the world, because once you're off by a factor of 1,000 who cares if it's actually a factor of 1,000,000? Both are so staggeringly wrong that the difference is a detail. Numbers greater than the British billion are never used in reality, except perhaps in physics or the occasional hyper-hyper-inflated currency, so it doesn't affect anything. But it is an interesting point that's worth pointing out, since you're correct that it can be easily missed in the current layout/discussion. ... and so I've added it, and while I was there I redid the definitions slightly since I think they left out the key point, how each new term increases the total by a set amount. - DavidWBrooks 11:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
The myth wont die but there has been no such thing as an English billion for over 30 years. Really. TheMathemagician (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The myth won't die because it's not a myth and the "English Billion" is not yet dead! ( - though I agree that it is becoming less common) Dbfirs 18:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

thousand million should go....

I know Wikipedia follows a non-partisan policy with regard to spelling and word-usage, but there comes a time when excessive loyalty to this principle can become a fetish and a burden, and such is the case here. There is such a thing as the natural atrophy of usage where customs, experience and new needs combine to favour some usages over others. In such cases, some variants become first “rare”, then “obsolete', then “archaic”. Over time, the “American” use of million, billion and so on, has comprehensively displaced the notion of “milliard” and “billiard”, the latter excluded from many dictionaries.

There is an excellent reason for this, whose meaning has exercised me of late, but wherefore I know not. I began to notice that there are numerous instances where the “American billion” makes itself useful, but comparatively few, outside of astronomy, where the old “English billion” does so, although I am not quite sure why. The Earth's population is about 6 billion for example, and having to say 6 thousand million is a nuisance. The populations of China and India are both about a billion (US). Virtually every numerous aspect of Planet Earth can conveniently be expressed in US billions and (occasionally) trillions. Had the English / French system prevailed, and considering that milliard never took off, there would be no new word to deal with numbers between a million and 999 thousand million, a silly state of affairs. I would be interested to hear any views about why so many parameters can employ US billions, from social and economic and financial studies (one can have US “billionaires” but hardly English ones for example), and the natural sciences, and so few are amenable to the English billion and its offshoots.

Please, let a hundred flowers bloom and a thousand thoughts contend on Wikipedia, but let's not flog a dead horse. Some things are better left to rest in peace. The only reason that ambiguity arises today is because some diehards insist on persevering with an outmoded system. Myles325a 10:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Er, so what? Just because you wish to delete the long scale terminology does not mean the rest of the planet is going to. Even if the (English speaking) world is slowly adopting the short scale use, it is not universal. And the article is not here to try and define one usage over another, but to report that there are two different systems, and where they differ. The usage of 'thousand million' is pretty clear and does not allow for ambiguity. The use of 'billion', in Australia, and particularly elsewhere, still does. The Yeti 23:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
"Thousand million" was very, very widely used in print before 1990 or thereabouts. If there's evidence that it's truly obsolete and not seen any more, the article should say that, but there's no reason to delete what was a very common usage within living memory of many readers. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:19, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I have only ever come across people using the long-scale system when discussing it as a historical curiousity in the UK, and I think the article is right in stating that apart from a few confused older folk, everyone who uses the word billion here means 10^9. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colostomyexplosion (talk • contribs) 14:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, thankyou for describing me as a confused older folk. I never accepted Harold Wilson's decree! Dbfirs 18:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hansard

Now added: the link to the online Hansard referencing Harold Wilson's 20 Dec 1974 decision to make the UK Government use the short-scale 'billion'. Ian Cairns (talk) 22:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

commas and {{gap}}s

This article does not refer to a mathematical or scientific context; it refers to common usage. If it were a scientific context, one billion would be 1×109 or 1×1012 in the short or long scales. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing the need for improvement tags

I've been looking at the reported problems on this article, which I believe is otherwise one of the most informative webpages on the subject to be had anywhere on the Internet - and should have a higher profile / rating within WP. As far as I can tell, there are 3 tags in the article, and I ask for opinions about how we can work to eliminate the need for these tags. Are they still needed? Is there a form of words that we can agree in order to remove one or more of these tags?

#English language countries - There is a 'Who' tag attached to the sentence "Because of this history, some long scale use persists and the official status of the short scale in these countries is sometimes obscure"

  1. Indonesian usage
    a) There is a 'Who' tag attached to the sentence "Occasionally some youngsters may substitute the English billion (understood as meaning milyar) in their conversation"
    b)     Although no additional tags have been used (yet), there is also an internal inconsistency: Indonesia is included under "Short Scale with Milliard" (with supplied reference) yet the Indonesian Usage section states that Indonesia is a long scale country... These are contradictory. Can anyone sort this out please? If not, I suggest commenting out parts of the Indonesian Usage which contradict the supplied reference....
  2. Italian usage - There is a 'Citation needed' attached to the sentence "Colloquially, bilione can mean both 10^9 and 10^12; trilione both 10^12 and (rarer) 10^18 and so on"

Together these tags cover all the hidden categorisations of the article. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Merger of Milliard into this article

I've copied below the text of the Milliard article so that can be closed down. Much of the content is already in the LASS article - so there should be little to move across. I'd suggest closing down this section / striking through this text, as and when text is dealt with. I can find no other confirmation of the alleged use of nickel, and suggest this is vandalism. Please provide a reference befroe copying into the main article. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 17:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

" Milliard is a French-derived numeral word meaning the number 1,000,000,000 (109; one thousand million; SI prefix giga) and which is used in France, Germany ("Milliarde"), Italy ("Miliardo"), Russia ("миллиард"), Bulgaria ("милиард"), Ukraine ("Мільярд"), the Scandinavian countries (Norway and Denmark) ("Milliard"), Sweden ("Miljard"), Finland ("Miljardi"), the Netherlands ("Miljard"), Romania ("Miliard"), Poland ("Miliard"), Slovenia ("Milijarda"), Hungary ("Milliárd"), Iran, and Israel (מיליארד).

"Millardo" is sometimes used in Spanish-speaking countries but "mil millones" is used more frequently. The word "Billón" is sometimes incorrectly used in those countries more influenced by the United States but it is considered unacceptable Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas). Although the "milliard" unit is known in English-speaking countries, use of the term is rare or unknown due to the British habit of saying "thousand million" and the American habit of saying "billion".

During the 20th century, the short scale "billion" superseded "thousand million" to become the normal term in most of the English-speaking world. In languages in which "milliard" is common, a "billion" often refers to a thousand "milliard" or 1,000,000,000,000, which is a trillion elsewhere. This scheme continues in these countries, so "billiard" means quadrillion, "trillion" means quintillion and "trilliard" means sextillion.

In financial markets, yard (derived from milliard) is still often used instead of "billion" to avoid ambiguity between "million" and "billion". When South Africa adopted the metric system in 1971, "milliard" was recommended by the Metrication Board, but has often been ignored in practice. A negative "yard" or "billion" in the financial markets is commonly known as a nickel.

Translation errors are often caused by not knowing the difference between the long and the short scale usages of these large numerals. "

Resentment?

Does anyone else think the lede sentence "Usage changes can evoke resentment in adherents to the older system, while national differences of any kind can acquire jingoistic overtones" has a pretty feeble source for an encyclopedia article? The source is one individual voicing an opinion, and any estimate of whether 1% or 10% of the population still feels this way is pure speculation and therefore unencyclopedic. Does anyone object to simply deleting it? --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Comparison table wording

The comparison table says "thousand million (sometimes milliard)". Why only "sometimes"? Isn't the word "milliard" used in almost every European language except English? Therefore it is not only used "sometimes" but is actually a very common word. Neither does English use it "sometimes", since English doesn't use it at all (according to this article.) I propose dropping the word "sometimes" since it is misleading, or changing it to "(in many languages: milliard)". Offliner (talk) 18:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Whatever you do about this, please note that accordint to the section Long and short scales#Long scale countries, Spanish speaking countries (as well as Portugal and Andorra) mostly use mil milliones or the like.--Noe (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Note discussion of textual changes...

...in the still going strong thread about mixed uses in British English. JoergenB (talk) 15:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

milliard - again

At least Germany we have - in addition to milliard 19 - a billiarde 115 and a trilliarde 121 and to on. I expect it is the same for the other long scale countries. --Krischik T 19:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Table widths

My problem with Long and short scales is with the two charts under

3.3 Both long and short scales countries

3.4 Neither short nor long scale countries

They fit quite well on standard screens before your edits. If you'll restore those charts I'll make no fuss about your other edits as long as they're verifiable. --Glenn L (talk) 09:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Glen, I have replaced all fixed '880' table widths with '95%' (or less) table widths, which has been in the article for some time now (over a year) and are clearly more acceptable as a variable width display. Ian Cairns (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I reset four tables to 100% and adjusted the column ratios to what fits the best. --Glenn L (talk) 05:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Source for billiard

The word billiard (1000 billions, long scale) is mentioned a couple of times in this article. I haven't found any reliable source stating that this word with this meaning actually exists at all. It seems to be a long-lived and hard-to-kill myth that there is such a word, probably inspired from a particular game in the world of sports. If noone can find a reliable source, I think the mentioning of this word should be deleted. The same goes for trilliard, and so on. Mårten Berglund (talk) 16:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

You may be right that these words have no reality in any English-speaking country (I don't know). But they certainly exist in e.g. Danish (and I'm pretty sure in Swedish too - your name looks Swedish?). Of course, they are rarely used, as so large numbers rarely occur outside of the sciences, where power-of-ten notation or SI prefixes often are used instead. - Googling for billiard gives a lot of hits about pool-like games; googling for trilliard gives loads of dictionnary pages and such (e.g., in Danish, http://www.glemsom.dk/talmaal/danskemaal.htm), or pages where trilliard is used for an unspecified huge number (like 40 and 1001 are used in Arabian Nights). So rare, but real.--Noe (talk) 08:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
You must be thinking exclusively of the Amercian English language of today, otherwise I couldn't see why you would think that the word billiard could be a myth, as proof that the word exists in other languages, maybe spelled slightly differently, isn't hard to find. In fact, the word does exist in your own language, Swedish. In German, like in Swedish (as far as I can tell), the suffix -illiarde (Milliarde, Trilliarde, Quadrilliarde...) is used whenever 1000 -illion is meant: 1000 Millionen = 1 Milliarde (10^9), 1000 Quadrillionen = 1 Quadrilliarde (10^15). AFAIK, the suffix -ard (as in billiard) was also used in British English. I don't exactly know why I'm telling you all this, as it's already mentioned in the article. I don't know why you'd scent a hoax. (62.152.162.207 (talk) 11:14, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Use of "thousand milliard"

The section Use of "thousand milliard" reads:

In those countries using the term "milliard", the term "thousand milliard" is occasionally used, but only in budgetary contexts. One milliard currency units has become the major budgetary unit, as in the national debt of Germany at the end of 2004 was about 1418 milliard euros. In all other contexts in these same countries, 1012 is always termed "billion" and not "thousand milliard".

Is this a correct interpretation of usage, and noteworthy? When discussing the population of various countries, I may say that Denmark has 5 million inhabitants, and (for ease of comparison) India has 1200 million. In other contexts, I might prefer to say that India has 1.2 billion. Discussing years, I may say "nineteen hundred forty-nine" instead of "one thousand nine hundred and forty-nine" - arguably for ease of comparison with e.g. year nine hundrer seventy-six. Is there anything beyond this phenomenon involved in the statement about the national debt of Germany?--Noe (talk) 12:09, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I would argue that the use of 'billion' vs. 'thousand milliards' is more often dictated by the purpose. If you speak in thousand milliard, the number simply looks bigger. If you want to make the number appear smaller, use billions. This is not limited to budgetary contexts anyway, it's just a question of what you want to achieve. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.252.248.203 (talk) 11:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
As a German, I'd scratch that discussion. "Thousand milliards" is not commonly used in any context. People might possibly use a term like that and it would be understandable, but it would be just as unusual as Americans talking about "a thousand thousands" or "a thousand million". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.230.166.41 (talk) 19:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I'll now remove the section in question.--Nø (talk) 19:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

False friends

Wikipedia is not a dictionnary, so we should not go on about number names in other languages, unless there is a point to it. The point, in this case, is, as I see it, that e.g. "billion" is an example of what linguists call false friends between modern English and a number of other languages. I have included a sentence to this effect in the lead, but been reverted twice. Perhaps it should be included in a different way, but to include it was neither "vandalism" nor merely a "good faith edit" - it is adding information that belongs in this article. Of course, a source would be good - at least for the part of my addition saying this is a frequent source of errors of translation. I have googled a bit and found several relevant hits, but no perfect citable source.

I'll leave it to others to fix this.--Noe (talk) 06:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It was reverted because it came across as a "this seems plausible to me" statement made by a single person, rather than the statement of something that's commonly known or accepted. "False friends" as a source of numerical confusion sounds reasonable, but lots of things that turn out not to be true also sound reasonable. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Somewhat embarassing, I just noticed that in the following sentence in the lead:
The two systems can be a subject of misunderstanding or controversy.'
, the word "misunderstanding" links to "False friend". This makes sense, but is also a slightly obscure way of using piped links - I'd prefer the term "false friends" (which is what this whole article is all about - or nearly so) to appear explicitly. For now, I've added it to the "See also" section. Not a perfect solution, I think, but then at least it is there.
Plausible stuff without explicit sources is what most of wikipedia is made up of. Of course, the burden of providing a source lies on anyone insisting on inclusion of a certain factoid, but reversion of obviously relevant material with a meaningful wiki-link as "vandalism" or "good-faith edits" is unfriendly and unneccesary.
In this case, several relevant hits are found by googling e.g. "false friend billion". However, I have not been able to single out any particular hit as a sound citable source. Of course, whenever inclusion of a factoid is controversial or disputed (and I've no idea why this one is or should be), just having some homepage mentioning your factoid is NOT sufficient documentation.--Noe (talk) 13:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
FYI - "good faith edits" is a default key for reverting an edit in the friendliest way possible; I followed it in the Edit Summary with my thinking. It certainly wasn't meant to be dismissive and I'm sorry if it came out that way. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
You know, I don't think this is an example of "false friends" at all. This isn't similar words that accidentally have different meanings in different languages, which is what "false friends" means linguistically - it's the exact same word that can be interpreted differently even within the same language. Nobody is mistaking, say, "billion" for another word - they're choosing to define it differently. I don't know what the term would be for that phenomenon. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
False friend within ONE language (British English) is of course a special phenomenon. But comparing modern English and e.g. Danish, "billion" are false friends in the normal sense of that term. Compare e.g. to the false friends "eventuelt" (Danish, meaning "possibly") and "eventually" (English, "in the end"). Ethymologically identical, but different meanings. The fact that they (unlike "billion") have different endings is insignificant here - that's just because they obey some morphological rules in the two languages. Much of English vocabulary is similar to Danish because of shared roots - some in Norse, some in Latin. And especially for the Latin ones, there is in many cases a close similarity in meaning, allowing for word-by-word translations - but with "eventu..." and "billion", you may get it terribly wrong translating word-by-word.--Noe (talk) 15:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe they're quite false friends either. There is no black and white answer if they're false friends or not. (And I doubt any reliable source would weigh in one way or the other). The term false friends seems best applied to similar words in two (or more) languages that have acquired important differences in meaning over time ... billion is still a number, it's not like billion in one language means "number" and in another it means say, "medicine". Those would clearly be false friends. Yes, they differ by in amount/magnitude a great deal but they still both refer to number and the fact that different countries use different scales is fairly well known. It's not black and white, I understand the point of view that they refer to different amounts so to some readers appear to be false friends. I don't think there is any obvious answer other than to say "Is the page improved by the addition?" Is it an improvement to add the term false friends in addition to the discussion already present in the article of the similarity of many terms in different languages? There is subjectivity involved in calling them false friends and I find adding the term is only distracting rather than illuminating. BobKawanaka 18:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by BobKawanaka (talk • contribs)
Despite my earlier argument I think it's fine to have the term as a "see also" at the end of the article (as Noe has placed it), because it's close enough to raise interesting questions. Raising interesting questions is a good thing! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree "see also" is a good place for the term. BobKawanaka 21:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by BobKawanaka (talk • contribs)

I must admit I never saw ANY reason why "billion" / "billion" should not be considered false friend. I've now added it again, and linked a source.--Nø (talk) 15:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Myanmar

Although a citation was requested for the short-scale status of Myanmar, the supplied citation is for Burmese English. We currently have a link to Indian numerals, which states that these are in common use in Myanmar. As a result, I understand that Myanmar should have a dual status as short scale in its English-speaking population and Indian numerals in the remainder of the population. I intend to adjust the article accordingly. Can anyone provide citations to contradict this situation? Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 19:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The citation is in Burmese, not Burmese English. (I just looked up a recent Burmese publication but it's found in any publication today. it's common usage.) Burmese English still occasionally uses the term lakh for 100,000 (even that is used by older people). But as far as all the numbers above 10^7--the Burmese language doesn't have any terms any number greater than 10^7--the numbers are directly transliterated from English to Burmese. So the name is a direct translation of billion and is trillion. So the Burmese usage has become short scale because the prevailing usage in English has become short scale. If the English usage were long scale, the Burmese usage would have been long scale too. Hybernator (talk) 20:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

incorrect claim for Pelletier's use of "milliard"

The following is wrong according to Jacques Pelletier du Mans:

Jacques Pelletier du Mans used the name milliard (“milliart”) for "Million de Millions", i.e. 1012.

Apparently the following is also wrong and apparently an incorrect and OR interpretation of what Google shows from David Eugene Smith's History of Mathematics:

The majority of scientists either continued to say "thousand million" or changed the meaning of the Pelletier term, milliard, from "million of millions" down to "thousand million". --Espoo (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I have added {{cn}}s as needed. I don't believe it - and the OED strongly suggests otherwise. We should also note that their first citation for milliard is from the American ambassador to France, discussing French finance in 1789; their first citation for billion is from Locke, a century earlier, and introducing long scale to replace "millions of millions", "millions of millions of millions", and so on. In the sixteenth century, English was neither short nor long. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Canada

Canada has never used the short scale officially. The problem comes with being so close to the USA in so many social and political functions that we tend to lose our own identity and culture.

A reference to a CBC news article misusing the term billion is not a valid reference for definition purposes, here. Please supply a valid reference, either way. The history chart refers to a time when the long scale was our standard in Canada. No later enactment or entry has been shown, only poorly educated news reporters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.170.70 (talk) 13:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, Canada has never used the long scale officially. However, if you can find a reference for use, I would be willing to reinsert it as a former use in Canada. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:45, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but that statement is not correct. Canada was a British colony and followed their system, which was long scale, until 1974. The Canadian press began using short scale reports due to US influence similar to incorrectly using the other US systems. ie. ounces, pints, quarts, gallons and other odd measurements not used in other parts of the world. Using a news report misuse for reference is not a valid reference and just editorially immature. If you can demonstrate a valid reference I would be glad to allow the changes to our reported system on wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.170.70 (talk) 12:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, you would need to provide evidence that Canada ever used long scale. They don't, now. Even when Canada was a British "colony". and when what is presently the United States were British colonies, the language was different, although I don't have good references supporting what was used in the New World then. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Come to think of it, I agree with you that the news source, which shows only that that source used short scale, is not helpful. In fact, however, well-educated Canadians use short scale. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

It would appear I have to concede this item at this time. I have found a Canadian government website definition of "billion" that currently supports your argument of split usage between the language cultures in Canada. <see link>

http://btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=&index=frt&__index=frt&srchtxt=billion&comencsrch.x=12&comencsrch.y=10

In the 1950s to 1970s Canadian students were taught that a billion was 10^12 and many news articles published, supported the concept with the usage of the term "thousand million" in headlines and article bodies. Since we are an imperial country and the British have supported the long system ubtil 1974 I would be sure that Canada also followed this style of numbering systems. No official Canadian decree or mention can be found and it should be noted on the wiki page that references are needed instead of a poor refernece to a reporter's opinionated headline. Canadians are strongy influenced by their southern brothers and it continually degrades their cultural standards, spelling and measurement systems.

I have included some references I came across that support the usage of the term "thousand million" in older Canadian articles and books including one by a Canadian official political official.

My apologies for any confusion this may have caused. You need to identify yourself when co-responding initially in future. I just figured you were another nasty.

Best wishes on the good work. Some repairs to the page are in order.


R. G. MCKEE, Deputy Minister of Forests, British Columbia, Canada http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5393e/x5393e02.htm

http://outreach.lrh.usace.army.mil/Industries/Grain/Grain%20GL.htm

Reference to coal quantities in a history book: Canada ToDay and Tomorrow" Pg. 187 http://books.google.ca/books?id=dqrCBbhyZWoC&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=Canada+%22thousand+million%22&source=bl&ots=nIHhjprjr1&sig=Qmi8vq9Zo5WBmWBPT288BKOYxlA&hl=en&ei=wKafTJDnMomlnQfnsOC0DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=Canada%20%22thousand%20million%22&f=false

Canadian Government site referenceing multiple Canadian library books using the phrase "thousand million" http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/lac-bac/results/lib?FormName=Fed+Simple+Search&SourceQuery=&PageNum=1&SortSpec=score+desc&SearchIn_1=&SearchInText_1=%22thousand+million%22&Operator_1=AND&SearchIn_2=&SearchInText_2=&Operator_2=AND&SearchIn_3=&SearchInText_3=&Sources_1=amicus&Sources_2=mikan&Sources_3=genapp&Sources_4=web&soundex=&cainInd=&Sources=amicus&ResultCount=10&MaxDocs=-1


Newspaper articles using the term "thousand million" Based on this search result http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/newspaper_search_result.xml?query=%22thousand+million%22&searchNewsPapers=Search&pos=0 http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/newspapers/WPT/1943/03/29/articles/252.xml/iarchives?query=thousand million http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/newspapers/TVC/1915/02/19/6/Ar00600.xml/Olive?query=%22thousand million%22 http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/newspapers/DNW/1896/06/20/4/Ar00400.xml/Olive?query=%22thousand million%22 http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/newspapers/WPT/1941/01/06/articles/56.xml/iarchives?query=%22thousand million%22 http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/newspapers/TMT/1898/09/28/5/Ar00510.xml/Olive?query=%22thousand million%22 http://pi.library.yorku.ca/dspace/bitstream/handle/10315/915/HSH00004.pdf;jsessionid=B6594CD314155DFAE5D78976029B81A1?sequence=4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.170.70 (talk) 21:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

We may all like the Canadian information to say certain preferences. However constant random editing of the information, without any substantiation or cites, only cheapens the wikipedia article and makes it untrustworthy, whether done by a rogue administrator, or troll. Speaking for **ALL** Canadians is a foolish statement and cannot be made in an honest manner without some special authority. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.35.12.221 (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Notes on Canada were deleted. administrator(s) obssession with control made the paragraph useless and only contained repetitive information for three other occurances on charts. Interesting **NOTES** from various users were not allowed for Canada. Some maturity of those n power needs to be exercised here, from an onlooker's perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.118.149.54 (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Usage Section

The usage section is pretty inconsistent with the rest of the text. The long scale subsection lists countries that use short scale. The definition used also indicates short scale. The section called short scale, lists long scale countries and has the same definition as the short scale. Confusing. --Miw 09:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


I noticed Puerto Rico is listed as a country which uses both the long and the short scale. However, Puerto Rico is not a country; it is a Commonwealth of the U.S. I didn't read closely to see if other countries had regions posted in either category, but as a US territory, it doesn't belong in a list of countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.175.99 (talk) 03:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Administrator Terrorism

Constant attempts to hide this paragraph by vandals Seb az86556

Forgive me if the format is not up to standards (newbie) bit I have noticed some real problems with the wiki concept.

Why not just lock all articles down and people submit revisions to be evaluated by the police force before incorporation into the articles? This may save a lot of aggravation for the may aggravators (the administrators). Many good revisions have been submitted to correct the constant repetative statements used in this article and yet the theme that appears to prevail is

User edit Administrator revert...no discussion User or another user "undoes" the revert with an explanation Administrator gives warning without any notice of who or what they are. No explanation in the discussion page are given. User or another user undoes the revert again. Administrator dislikes the emotional challenge, acts like a child and blocks the user without any discussion or cites for the new information, valid or not. I have witnessed this many times on quite a few articles. Although a lot of policing needs to be done and it is a big, and hard, task some policing of the police needs to be done to avoid the (as one user put it) "rogue administrators on an ego trip.

This tends to discourage user input and in the end discourages usage letting the website eventually drift away for a more progressive and friendly site in the future.

Please note this is a discussion page and attempts to hide the discussion of the wiki concept only further exemplify the above comments--174.118.149.54 (talk) 04:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Please can you be more specific with your accusations. Which reverts are you complaining about? Please note that I have spell-checked and corrected your point above - there were so many errors in the English that it might have been reverted by any editor. Clearly, edits have to be easier to correct than to revert. In several circumstances, some bad editing is indistinguishable from attempted vandalism. Hope that helps, Ian Cairns (talk) 18:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Australian usage

I distinctly recall Australia officially adopting the short scale during the term of Prime Minister Bob Hawke, 11 March 1983 – 20 December 1991. I believe this change was legislated. Unfortuantely online Hansard indexes are only available from 2006 onwards.

Galaxiom (talk) 12:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Australian Standards AS1000 (appendix AA) states that the Engineers are to use long scale (Billion = Million Million) as outlined in "The 9th General Conference of Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 1948". However, in 1982 they realised it would be difficult to enforce this and have recommended "that the scientific engineering use be avoided". 203.91.84.7 (talk) 14:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I attend LaTrobe university as a BS student, when talking about billions we are told to define which billion we are talking about. Ie I say the answer is 18billion and i will be asked, "Do you mean a US billion or a English billion." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.181.18.168 (talk) 08:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Featured Article (FA)

I am grateful to User:Pyrotec for his recent award to this article of 'Good Article' status. Ever ambitious, I am interested in obtaining a gap report of deficiencies for Featured Article status. Although we have had substantial recent work wrt the Good Article rework, we are not far from the Featured Article status, and I would really like to see some qualification / quantification of the work involved in obtaining the FA status. I am aware from Google that this article is quoted / used regularly to resolve issues with the word 'billion', and it would be good to bring this together.... Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 21:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

After a year of waiting, I have finally nominated this article as FA candidate. Please alert any issues that might hold this article back from this status. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 23:36, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Featured article - not

There were a number of concerns with the article quality expressed at the FA review. [2]. I apologise for getting part of the nomination process wrong. I intend to take this article to Peer Review instead of FA. Ian Cairns (talk) 12:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Inline copy of FA review

Oppose - unfortunately I don't feel this article currently meets the FA criteria. Here are some specific concerns:

  • More citations are needed. In general, a good rule of thumb is to have a minimum of one citation per paragraph
  • WP:MOS issues, including wikilinking issues, hyphen/dash problems, inappropriate bolding, etc
  • Organizational issues: bulleted lists/table problems, huge ToC
  • Use of potentially unreliable sources and inconsistent citation formatting
  • Citations to Wiktionary, missing information from citations, what appears to be a partial annotated bibliography in footnotes.

Suggest withdrawal and peer review to allow some of these issues to be addressed. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggest withdrawal I can only agree with Nikkimaria. FAC is for relatively minor fixes, not major upgrading. This is an interesting article, and you've put in a good deal of work, but it's some way short. It's a good idea at GAN to indicate if you are planning to go to FA, and ask for a no holds barred review Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Very long scale?

I live in Argentina, so I use the long numeral scale. However, here most people use another system (indeed, I didn't hear of the long scale until reading this article, and most mathematics professors I asked didn't know about it anyway), where "ions" go between n and n², for example:

100.000.000.000Thousand Million (appears to be a typo)
1.000.000.000.000Billion
10.000.000.000.000Ten Billion
100.000.000.000.000Hundred Billion
1.000.000.000.000.000Thousand Billion
10.000.000.000.000.000Ten Thousand Billion
100.000.000.000.000.000Hundred Thousand Billion
1.000.000.000.000.000.000Million Billion
(...)
100.000.000.000.000.000.000.000Hundred Thousand Million Billion
1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000Trillion

Has anyone ever heard about this scale? --FixmanPraise me 14:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the "long scale". I see no differences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.118.149.54 (talk) 03:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it looks more like the scale in the section below, similar to the -yllion scale. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Even longer scale?

On learning that a thousand thousands were a million, and a million millions were a billion, then obviously, a billion billions should be a trillion, and so on for quadrillion, etc., doubling the zero count at each name stage, not boringly add just three. It seemed so obvious to me and it introduces a new number name only at need when a previous stage is used up. But alas, surely a thousand should be a hundred hundreds (thus allowing "fifteen hundred" into the scheme) just as a hundred is ten tens. Oh well. Will everyone agree to my scheme? Or am I alone in this? Can I follow Humpty Dumpty and pay words double? NickyMcLean (talk) 02:21, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I recall a post here a while back by someone claiming his/her maths teacher taught this system as being in real use. Nice idea, but it would probably be quite confusing (a hundred thousand million billions would be the proper name for 10^23) - and most people use scientific notation for huge numbers anyway.--Nø (talk) 07:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
That indeed is the naming scheme I was taught in England in the 1970s. million million, billion billion, trillion trillion, quadrillion quadrillion, and so on (latincounterprefix(n))illion (latincounterprefix(n))illion being (latincounterprefix(n+1))illion. User:jgharston~J.G.Harston
See, for example, -yllion for a proposed use, but using different names. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I've repositioned this part to be near the section mentioning the "squares" system as laid forth by one Australian teacher (no connection, I'm in New Zealand) - should this be called the "Antipodean" or ANZAC system?NickyMcLean (talk) 19:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Adjustments to Estonian language and Romanian language

While checking this article against other language articles and their references, it has become clear to me that

  1. Estonian can be considered as a short or long scale country, depending on the source / reference
  2. Romania appears to be a long scale country (in common with other European languages), but after 10^12 follows its own scale - neither long nor short

As a result, I intend to adjust both entries to reflect this usage. In particular, I intend to introduce Usage sections where the issues can be expanded. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 15:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Work required under Peer Review

Is any editor available to assist in re-working the article to meet the concerns being expressed in the Peer Review? Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 21:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The original concerns were:

  • WP:OVERLINK: don't link very common terms, don't link the same term multiple times (especially not in close proximity)
  • Bibliographical annotation (ie. when you explain what a source is, what its purpose is, or similar) is usually confined to External links, if used at all
  • A good rule of thumb is to have a minimum of one source per paragraph, usually more depending on content
  • "...value within each scale - the short scale logic...": phrases like this should use spaced endashes or unspaced emdashes, not hyphens. See WP:HYPHEN and WP:DASH for usage rules
  • Why are prefixes bolded in the tables?
  • Why are certain paragraphs in History indented?
  • Generally speaking , italics should be used for emphasis, and sparingly, never bolding or capitalization - see WP:ITALICS
  • Don't tell the reader to "note" something - see WP:W2W
  • Try to avoid very short subsections and a very long table of contents
  • Don't link terms in See also already linked in article text
  • All book citations need page numbers
  • This link returns a 404 not found. See here for other potentially problematic links
  • Web citations need publishers and retrieval dates
  • Don't cite anything to a wiki
  • Make sure similar citations are formatted the same way
  • Make sure all sources used meet the reliable source policy. For example, who is the author of this site, and what are his or her qualifications?
  • Don't repeat cited sources in External links.

.. but some of these may now have been mitigated. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 11:45, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The Peer Review has now been closed - presumably with outstanding actions? As a result, I have copied below the action list for other editors to see the current status / target issues in the current article. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 17:45, 7 August 2011 (UTC)


Work-in-progress comments

I've copied your above comments - so that I can strikeout in the copy any that I think are now dealt with. If you are reviewing progress from time-to-time, I would appreciate an indication if you disagree the mitigation has cleared your corresponding comment. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 23:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

  • A good rule of thumb is to have a minimum of one source per paragraph, usually more depending on content
Agreed - there are areas where more sources may be useful. In the meantime, some issues have arisen which require sources to resolve.
  • Generally speaking , italics should be used for emphasis, and sparingly, never bolding or capitalization - see WP:ITALICS
Agreed - the use of italics in the article follows WP:WORDSASWORDS, which is a subsection of WP:ITALICS - this is therefore conformant to WP Style.
  • WP:OVERLINK: don't link very common terms, don't link the same term multiple times (especially not in close proximity)
  • Bibliographical annotation (ie. when you explain what a source is, what its purpose is, or similar) is usually confined to External links, if used at all
  • "...value within each scale - the short scale logic...": phrases like this should use spaced endashes or unspaced emdashes, not hyphens. See WP:HYPHEN and WP:DASH for usage rules
  • Why are prefixes bolded in the tables?
  • Why are certain paragraphs in History indented?
  • Don't tell the reader to "note" something - see WP:W2W
  • Try to avoid very short subsections and a very long table of contents
  • Don't link terms in See also already linked in article text
  • All book citations need page numbers
  • This link returns a 404 not found. See here for other potentially problematic links
  • Web citations need publishers and retrieval dates
  • Don't cite anything to a wiki
  • Make sure similar citations are formatted the same way
  • Make sure all sources used meet the reliable source policy. For example, who is the author of this site, and what are his or her qualifications?
  • Don't repeat cited sources in External links.

Estonia

Thanks for your contributions to the above article [3], [4] from 10 Oct 2007 which clarified Estonia as a short scale country. During the current peer review of this article, I have noticed that the equivalent Polish Good article pl:Liczebniki_główne_potęg_tysiąca disagrees with your statement and quotes the Institute of Baltic Studies 'English-Estonian' online dictionary as reference. As a non-Estonian-speaker, I've tried to investigate as best as I can, but I suspect that the actual situation in Estonian is not clear cut and I can find references to both sides. If so, it may be worthwhile moving Estonia to a dual-status country, and presenting usage notes on the conflicting usage. Is this sensible, or do you have any categoric references for the short scale status that explain the above contradiction?

If a discussion is needed, I would prefer to move this to the article's Talk page if you agree. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 14:41, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I think the Polish version is incorrect. In Estonian, a million (miljon) is 106, a milliard (miljard) is 109, and a trillion (triljon) is 1012. Never mind, what the dictionary says, I seem to think they have translated the word "billion" firstly as the word itself - "billion" and secondly the meaning - a "miljard" ("milliard"). In the illiterate press (especially among young journalists) the words are often incorrectly translated. 5 billion dollars are often translated as "5 biljonit". Where ever I have seen this, spelling enthusiasts always point out the mistake in the comments.

However, the official Estonian-Estonian dictionary says that a "biljon" is either a milliard (109) or million millions 1012. I think this is also because the word is sometimes used, but never for the meaning of either 109 or 1012 as a "miljard" is "1000 millions, 109" and a "triljon" is "million millions, 1012 (in some countries 1018). Therefore, I strongly advise to leave Estonia(n) to the short scale group, because no clear evidence states otherwise. H2ppyme (talk) 20:30, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Your references all allow both short and long scale interpretations - unless you are interpreting this differently? It looks, as a disinterested outsider, that Estonia is in the process of moving from one to the other, but that neither is definitive?? If so, this indecision should be documented.. Your opinion on why both long and short scale definitions are in the ee dictionary, please: Ian Cairns (talk) 20:56, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Moving to article talk page Ian Cairns (talk) 20:58, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
You misunderstood a little. The reason "biljon" is in the Estonian-Estonian dictionary is the same, why the word "milliard" exists in English. It is a word used to compare different number systems, different languages, but it doesn't have a meaning as one of the numbers in Estonian. Estonia is in no way on the crossroads from one system to another (not similar to getting rid of "all things Russian"). In fact, a Google search gives only 25,800 answers to Estonian language pages for "biljon", most are business names and articles about the difference of long and short scales... The word trillion gives 96,500 articles. In the biggest national newspaper, the Postimees, in the course of 8 years, only 11 articles contain the word "biljon", half of which are about the female swimmer Suzaan van Biljon and the rest are incorrect translations. The word "triljon" is used much more. Whoever uses the word "biljon" in Estonian for 1012 is simply incorrect. H2ppyme (talk) 21:33, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

H2ppyme, I've lost understanding of this argument.. You give references that show: Miljard is 10^9, Biljon is either 10^9 or 10^12, triljon is 10^12 (other countries 10^18). Surely this shows both short scale and long scale terms?(Miljard = 10^9) is long scale; (Biljon = 10^9) is short scale; (Biljon = 10^12) is long scale; (triljon = 10^12) is short scale. Do you have references that point to _just one_ official scale in use in Estonia, rather than both scales? If not, then surely we must reflect this double usage? Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 20:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It's like you're having an agenda... (but maybe I mixed up the names of the scales, I am not very familiar with the subject) But I can tell, that the word "biljon" doesn't have a numerical value. The order goes, million, milliard, trillion. Estonia definitely does not use both scales. H2ppyme (talk) 15:22, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no agenda - except to eliminate the discrepancy between the two Wikipedias. For this, I need to justify the values given. I think I will go back to the dictionaries you give, and produce an Estonian Notes section explaining the findings. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 12:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I have been able to provide the references required using the dictionary definitions you gave. This is clearly more local the the Institute of Baltic Studies' opinion, which is quoted by the Polish Wikipedia. Thank you for your time and trouble with the above. Ian Cairns (talk) 23:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The Institute of Baltic Studies deals with many things, I don't think they'd bother going so specific as explaining the word use in such subjects. And it is true that sometimes even the smartest people use the word "biljon", only when you think about the correct order of these numbers, you'd understand what you did wrong there :) H2ppyme (talk) 12:03, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Comparison Section

Perhaps this section should be removed for an overlength article, making it more concise and less verbose. This information is duplicated and expressed much better in the wikipedia article "Orders of magnitude (numbers)". A note and reference could be substituted in place of this bulky chart duplicating parts of the information99.251.112.162 (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that - though I have to disagree. The other article you mentioned intersperses the L&SS information from this article with a large of amount of verbiage, making it difficult to identify L&SS even if you knew what you were looking for. I think this L&SS article summarises / distills the relevant aspects very well by comparison. You suggest this L&SS article is overlength - on what basis? This was not one of the comments in the recent Peer Review. Instead, the reviewer wanted to see more references. Also, a number of 'Rank this page' reviews have suggested that the article is incomplete. I have added a few more countries as a result, and there are more that can be entered. Thanks, Ian Cairns (talk) 01:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Latinization

In the lists in the Current usage section, words for 10^9 and 10^12 are listed. In two or three cases where foreign alphabets are used, no transcriptions into the latin alphabet are shown. Can someone add these? It's missing for Armenia and Georgia. For Myanmar, only an IPA version is shown - perhaps that's just fine; I'm not sure!--Nø (talk) 10:09, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Romania

The wording here is very confusing, my interpretation is that they are using the short scale but are referring to "billion" as "milliard" and that is the only significant difference. If this is correct the explanation should be simplified. 69.223.182.242 (talk) 02:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, as described, Romania simply belongs in the list of "Other short scale countries and regions", with the words for 10^9 and 10^12 listed. Preferably, someone knowledgeable about the Romanian situation should fix this, so I will do nothing for now.--Nø (talk) 07:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
We Romanians use short scale with the only difference that 10^9 is called "miliard" (single l). So we have "mie, milion, miliard, trilion, catralion, chintilion, sextilion, septilion, etc." for 10^(3,6,9,12,15,18...). Never heard differently. There is no ambiguity for ANY of these names. The only ambiguity is the word "bilion", which came later in the language and is not so used, all translators having difficulties in translating it into 10^9 or 10^12. The terms "triliard"/etc were used long ago (French inspiration) but not anymore, many dictionaries (see dexonline.ro) even not mentioning them, and "biliard" refers only to the pool (cue game).
I have now moved Romania to the "Other short scale..." section. Apparently, there is no ro:Miliard article (though there is a ro:Trilion).--Nø (talk) 16:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Countries

I've added quite a few countries and split off some of the language blocks into separate sections. This has the effect of putting the translations into the block heading and reducing the "clutter" in the subsequent 'Other' section. I thought I'd explain that I've tried to add only countries where there is a single principal language, and where it is straightforward to deduce the language dependency. Where a country has two or more main languages, then I'd expect this country to be filed under 'Other' provided both languages agreed on the type of scale to be used; and filed under 'Both Long and Short' countries if the languages differed in the type of scale, e.g. French and Arabic - where French is a long scale language and Arabic is short. Obviously, others may take another opinion. However, it clearly needs to remain consistent. - Ian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.123.238 (talk • contribs) 78.105.123.238 (talk) 00:12, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

World map

The new World map is very welcome, and contains a challenge in that it contains light grey 'unknown' countries. It would be helpful to allocate these countries in the next revision of the map.. I reckon these currently stand at:

afghanistan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, moldova, tajikistan, turkmenistan, uzbekistan, western sahara => pink (as per article now)

Antarctica => purple (as per article)

greenland, laos => yellow (as per article now)

madagascar => blue (as per article now)

I would appreciate all double-checking. 78.105.123.238 (talk) 15:52, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Great! I've made these updates. Now, if we want all the gray dots to be filled, here's what's left (presumably some of these are easy?): Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Turks & Caicos, Anguilla, Saint-Barthélémy, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands, St. Helena, Faroe Islands, San Marino, Vatican City, Montenegro, Mauritius, Seychelles, Kerguelen, Maldives, East Timor, Palau, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna, Niue, Tokelau, Kiribati, Samoa, American Samoa, Norfolk Island, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Pitcairn Islands. Citynoise (talk) 02:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the updated graphic. I've spent a while researching the above list and have identified the following - corrections welcome.

Blue (long scale)

East Timor (TLS) Portuguese Faroe Islands FRO French Polynesia PYF French Kerguelen ATF Montenegro MNE New Caledonia NCL French Saint Barthélémy BLM San Marino SMR Vatican City VAT Wallis & Futuna WLF French

Pink (short scale) - English

American Samoa ASM Anguilla AIA Bermuda BMU British Virgin Islands VGB Cook Islands COK Falkland Islands FLK Guam GUM Kiribati KIR Marshall Islands MHL Micronesia, Federated States of FSM Montserrat MSR Nauru NRU Niue NIU Norfolk Island NFK Northern Mariana Islands MNP Palau PLW Pitcairn Islands PCN St. Helena SHN Saint Kitts & Nevis KNA St. Lucia LCA St. Vincent & The Grenadines VCT Samoa WSM Solomon Islands SLB South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands SGS Tokelau TKL Turks & Caicos TCA U.S. Virgin Islands VIR

Purple (both)

Mauritius MUS Seychelles SYC Vanuatu VUT

Yellow (own)

Maldives MDV - sinhala

I intend to add these to the main article shortly. Thanks, Ian 78.105.123.238 (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Excellent! Now the only one that's missing is Brunei (I didn't notice it before). Citynoise (talk) 14:04, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Sorted - short-scale (Malay) 78.105.123.238 (talk) 18:16, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
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