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Aria has a remarkable connection with
a great fact of our intellectual history, since
it is there that we find the first traces of the
what we call the Arabic system of numerical
notation. The first four figures are said
to be nothing else than the initials of
the names of the first four numbers
in an alphabet found in that region.
The old name for vulgar arithmetic in Chaucer,
mentioned also in Recorde's Grounde of Artes,
the earliest arithmetic in the English language
is augrim. Now this word “augrim” is nothing
but the corruption of Al-Kwarizmi, which
means the man[?] Chorasmia, being the surname
of the mathematician who originally introduced our vulgar