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Romaji is when you use the Roman alphabet to write out Japanese. I.e. you use
"abc" instead of "あいうえお". Taking that one step further, what do you call it
when you use "123" instead of "一二三"? My first thought was to call it "Roman
numerals", but those are "I, II, III"...so would they be "Romaji numbers"? I
realize usually we would just call them "numbers" in English (and in Japanese
"数字"), but there is there a way to call them when there is a need to
differentiate them?

The reason why I'm asking is because I was reading a book, and someone's age
was written out in kanji numbers, and it got me thinking.
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2012-08-31T02:56:15.127
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2012-08-31T16:49:46.217
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terminology rōmaji
Are numbers part of romaji? (i.e. 1, 2, 3 vs 一二三)
They are known as [Arabic
Numerals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals), or アラビア数字 in
Japanese. As you may notice, 1, 2, 3, etc. were developed by Indian
mathematicians and did not originate from ancient Rome. Up until the 14th
century Roman numerals were used, but were eventually abandoned in favor of
Arabic Numerals.
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2012-08-31T02:59:10.457
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2012-08-31T03:06:48.527
2012-08-31T03:06:48.527
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As Jesse Good said, Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, …, 9) are called アラビア数字 in
Japanese. Another name for them is 算用数字.

As an aside, numerals in kanji (一, 二, 三, …), loaned from Chinese, are called
漢数字 in Japanese. Roman numerals (I, II, III, …) are called ローマ数字.
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