Foursymbol

Foursymbol is a term used in typography and numeration to describe the set of glyphs that express the same quantity—four—across different writing systems. While the numeric value remains constant, the graphical representation varies by script, font, and historical tradition. The concept is often used in education and type design to illustrate cross-cultural numeral forms and to compare glyph shapes.

Across major scripts, the foursymbol exists in several common forms. The Western Arabic numeral 4 is used in most modern Western texts. The Roman numeral IV denotes four in classical contexts. In East Asian writing, the Chinese character 四 and its Japanese Kanji form is used. In the Devanagari and related Indic numeral systems, the digit ४ represents four. In digital typography, Unicode encodes these forms as distinct characters, reflecting their separate linguistic origins, even though they share the same numerical value.

Foursymbols appear in textbooks, multilingual signage, and font design as a teaching tool for numeration and for exploring script diversity. They can also be used in puzzles and visual representations where a single concept is shown in multiple scripts to highlight readability and cultural differences. The term itself does not refer to a single exclusive symbol, but to the family of glyphs that convey the same numerical value in different traditions.