it looks like you might be right… I’m surprised to learn that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Conventions_worldwide lists 83 countries who use comma as decimal separator, and only 59 who use dot (and presumably the thousands separator is usually the opposite of the decimal separator). However there are enough countries which aren’t on either list that it isn’t entirely clear from that page which convention is actually used in more countries.
Also, it’s much more complicated than the . vs , binary… among other oddities:
Historically, in Germany and Austria, thousands separators were occasionally denoted by alternating uses of commas and points, e.g. “1.234,567.890,12” (or “1.234,567.890·12” in Austria-Hungary and Austria prior to 1938) for “eine Milliarde 234 Millionen …”, but this is not seen today and contemporary German readers would require an explanation to understand it.
In Switzerland, there are two styles. Currency values use an apostrophe (') as a thousands separator along with a dot (.) as the decimal separator, like “1’234’567.89”. For other values, the SI-style “1 234 567,89” is used, with a comma (,) as the decimal separator. The apostrophe is also the most common thousands separator for non-currency values, like “1’234’567,89”.
interesting. in brazil we use . for thousands and , for decimals, and most of my knowledge from outside is english-speaking countries (mostly the US), so i guess i just thought that was the default
Here in Italy the thousands separator used to be a “high dot”, like the apostrophe you mention but in the shape of a dot… But our keyboards have no easy way to output that symbol so it went out of fashion over the last 20-30 years.
Actually I am sure otherwise. I believe comma is more widespread per country (dot might be more widespread by populace due to China, though)
it looks like you might be right… I’m surprised to learn that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Conventions_worldwide lists 83 countries who use comma as decimal separator, and only 59 who use dot (and presumably the thousands separator is usually the opposite of the decimal separator). However there are enough countries which aren’t on either list that it isn’t entirely clear from that page which convention is actually used in more countries.
Also, it’s much more complicated than the
.vs,binary… among other oddities:interesting. in brazil we use . for thousands and , for decimals, and most of my knowledge from outside is english-speaking countries (mostly the US), so i guess i just thought that was the default
Here in Italy the thousands separator used to be a “high dot”, like the apostrophe you mention but in the shape of a dot… But our keyboards have no easy way to output that symbol so it went out of fashion over the last 20-30 years.