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Math: History of The Percent Sign - by Yen Lin

The percent sign (%) indicates a number divided by one hundred. Prior to 1425, there was no special symbol used for percentage - the term "per cento" or abbreviations like "per 100" were used. Sometime between 1425-1435, a scribe abbreviated "pc" with a small loop, representing the Italian "-o" ending, which evolved into the modern percent sign with a horizontal fraction line by 1650, losing the "per".

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526 views2 pages

Math: History of The Percent Sign - by Yen Lin

The percent sign (%) indicates a number divided by one hundred. Prior to 1425, there was no special symbol used for percentage - the term "per cento" or abbreviations like "per 100" were used. Sometime between 1425-1435, a scribe abbreviated "pc" with a small loop, representing the Italian "-o" ending, which evolved into the modern percent sign with a horizontal fraction line by 1650, losing the "per".

Uploaded by

Crist John Pastor
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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History of the percent sign - by Yen Lin

HISTORY OF THE PERCENT SIGN

The percent sign (%) is the symbol used to indicate a percentage (that the
preceding number is divided by one hundred).

Related signs include the permille (per thousand) sign and


the permyriad (per ten thousand) sign (also known as a basis point),
which indicate that a number is divided by one thousand or ten thousand
respectively. Higher proportions use parts-per notation.

Evolution

Prior to 1425 there is no evidence of a special symbol being used for


percentage. The Italian term per cento, "for a hundred", was used as well as
several different abbreviations (e.g. "per 100", "p 100", "p cento", etc.).
Examples of this can be seen in the 1339 arithmetic text depicted below.The
letter p with its shaft crossed by a horizontal or diagonal strike
conventionally stood for per, por, par, or pur in Medieval and
Renaissance paleography.

At some point a scribe of some sort used the abbreviation "pc" with a tiny
loop or circle (depicting the ending -o used in Italian numeration for primo,
secondo,etc.) This appears in some additional pages of a 1425 text which
were probably added around 1435. This is shown below.

The "pc" with a loop eventually evolved into a horizontal fraction sign by
1650 and thereafter lost the "per".

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