Tally marks are an implementation of the
unary numeral systemThe unary numeral system is the bijective base-1 numeral system. It is the simplest numeral system to represent natural numbers: in order to represent a number N, an arbitrarily chosen symbol representing 1 is repeated N times. For example, using the symbol | , the number 6 is represented as ||||||...
. They are a form of
numeralA numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....
used for
countingCounting is the mathematical action of repeatedly adding one, usually to find out how many objects there are or to set aside a desired number of objects , or for well-ordered objects, to find the ordinal number of a...
. They allow updating written intermediate results without erasing or discarding anything written down. However, because of the length of large numbers, tallies are not commonly used for static text.
In
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, tally marks are most commonly written as groups of five lines. The first four lines are vertical, and every fifth line runs diagonally or horizontally across the previous four vertical lines, in either of the two possible directions (the popular direction may vary from region to region).
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Tally marks are an implementation of the
unary numeral systemThe unary numeral system is the bijective base-1 numeral system. It is the simplest numeral system to represent natural numbers: in order to represent a number N, an arbitrarily chosen symbol representing 1 is repeated N times. For example, using the symbol | , the number 6 is represented as ||||||...
. They are a form of
numeralA numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....
used for
countingCounting is the mathematical action of repeatedly adding one, usually to find out how many objects there are or to set aside a desired number of objects , or for well-ordered objects, to find the ordinal number of a...
. They allow updating written intermediate results without erasing or discarding anything written down. However, because of the length of large numbers, tallies are not commonly used for static text.
In
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, tally marks are most commonly written as groups of five lines. The first four lines are vertical, and every fifth line runs diagonally or horizontally across the previous four vertical lines, in either of the two possible directions (the popular direction may vary from region to region). The resulting mark is known as a
five-bar gate, from its similarity to the same. In some variants, the tenth tally is indicated by an X through the previous four rather than just a line, and in still other variants, the diagonal/horizontal slash is used on its own when five or more units are added at once. Two groups of five lines (i.e. ten tally marks) are sometimes circled.
ChineseChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
,
KoreaKorea is a civilization and formerly unified nation currently divided into two states. Located on the Korean Peninsula, it borders China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait....
n and
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese tally marks use the five strokes of 正 which is the character meaning "correct" "proper" and "honesty".
Notched sticks, known as
tally sticksA tally was an ancient memory aid device to record and document numbers, quantities, or even messages.Tally sticks first appear as notches carved on animal bones, in the Upper Paleolithic...
also were used for this purpose. The burning of discarded tally sticks resulted in the accidental
Burning of ParliamentThe Palace of Westminster has suffered two major fires since it became home to Parliament in the 16th century. The first fire in 1834 destroyed virtually everything but Westminster Hall; the second, caused by German bombing during the London Blitz of World War II, only caused partial damage.The...
in London in 1834.
Roman numeralsRoman numerals are a numeral system of ancient Rome based on letters of the alphabet, which are combined to signify the sum of their values. The first ten Roman numerals are:...
and Chinese
rod numeralsCounting rods are small bars, typically 3-14 cm long, used by mathematicians for calculation in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. They are placed either horizontally or vertically to represent any number and any fraction....
were derived from tally marks, as possibly was the
oghamOgham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic ancestor of Welsh...
script.