In the history, there are some different sayings about the genesis of Chinese numbers.

Modern scholar Guo Moruo thought that ancient people used fingers to indicate numbers and thus Chinese numbers gradually came into being. Chinese numbers are pictographs: one ( ), two ( ), three ( ), four ( ), five ( ) ……

Similar to numbers in other languages, Chinese numbers were originated from primitive counting activities of the Han nationality. In ancient China, people also used conches, knots of chord, bamboo, wood and so on as counting tools. Numbers written in Jiaguwen (scripts on tortoise shells and animal bones) show chord knotting in primitive counting.

The Chinese numbers of from one to ten, hundred ( ), thousand ( ), ten thousand ( ) were evolved from the above-mentioned Jiaguwen. With increase of knowledge and development of thinking of ancient people, the number of Chinese numbers kept increasing such as 100 million ( ), mega- ( ) and so on.

Arabic numerals were induced into China in about the 13th century but it was not until the early 20^th century that they were widely adopted in people's cultural life.