Notes about Numbers=Arabic

[avidseeker]

To typeset regular 1234 to ١٢٣٤, Babel in lua-arabic.tex uses:

\babelfont{rm}
          [ItalicFont=FreeSerif, Numbers=Arabic]
          {FreeSerif}

I see some problems with the choice of Numbers=Arabic as an option that makes it confusing.

0. Firstly "numerals" would be a better choice instead of "numbers" as these glyphs are not a numbering system.
1. The regular numbers 1234567890 used in English are the Arabic numerals. The numerals that Babel typesets to ١٢٣٤ are called Eastern Arabic Numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals.
2. It doesn't make sense to map numerals to languages as in the documentation section 1.18. See this Wikipedia Table

E.g:

1. 1234567890 Are Arabic numerals used by Arabic, Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek.
2. ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩: Eastern Arabic numerals are used by Arabic, Persian, Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Shahmukhi with some variation depending on the locale.
3. 〇一二三四五六七八九: Used by both Chinese and Japanese, and so on...

[jbezos]

Obsolete code, indeed, because Numbers=Arabic is deprecated. I missed it and I’ll fix it.

[jbezos]

@avidseeker This issue has led me to (re)consider a bit the current mechanism with mapdigits, which was introduced long before the arrival of transforms. Now, a transform can make more sense in many cases, so I've added it as an alternative. I’ll modify the example file once released.