4 (number) - Evolution of The Glyph

Evolution of The Glyph

Representing 1, 2 and 3 in as many lines as the number represented worked well. The Brahmin Indians simplified 4 by joining its four lines into a cross that looks like our modern plus sign. The Sunga would add a horizontal line on top of the numeral, and the Kshatrapa and Pallava evolved the numeral to a point where speed of writing was a secondary concern. The Arabs' 4 still had the early concept of the cross, but for the sake of efficiency, was made in one stroke by connecting the "western" end to the "northern" end; the "eastern" end was finished off with a curve. The Europeans dropped the finishing curve and gradually made the numeral less cursive, ending up with a glyph very close to the original Brahmin cross.

While the shape of the 4 character has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a descender, as, for example, in .

On the seven-segment displays of pocket calculators and digital watches, as well as certain optical character recognition fonts, 4 is seen with an open top.

Television stations that operate on channel 4 have occasionally made use of another variation of the "open 4", with the open portion being on the side, rather than the top. This version resembles the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics letter ᔦ. The magnetic ink character recognition "CMC-7" font also uses this variety of "4". Another form of the 4 glyph that was invented for television was the arrow 4, which combines the 4 glyph with an arrow.