[1,729 vs. 1729: The Effect of Scripts and Formats on LLM Numeracy](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.518.pdf)
[Varshini Reddy](/people/varshini-reddy/unverified/),
[Craig W Schmidt](/people/craig-w-schmidt/),
[Seth Ebner](/people/seth-ebner/),
[Adam Wiemerslage](/people/adam-wiemerslage/unverified/),
[Yuval Pinter](/people/yuval-pinter/),
[Chris Tanner](/people/chris-tanner/)
Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) have achieved impressive proficiency in basic arithmetic, rivaling human-level performance on standard numerical tasks. However, little attention has been given to how these models perform when numerical expressions deviate from the prevailing conventions present in their training corpora. In this work, we investigate numerical reasoning across a wide range of numeral scripts and formats. We show that LLM accuracy drops substantially when numerical inputs are rendered in underrepresented scripts or formats, despite the underlying mathematical reasoning being identical. We further demonstrate that targeted prompting strategies, such as few-shot prompting and explicit numeral mapping, can greatly narrow this gap. Our findings highlight an overlooked challenge in multilingual numerical reasoning and provide actionable insights for working with LLMs to reliably interpret, manipulate, and generate numbers across diverse numeral scripts and formatting styles.- Anthology ID:
- 2026.findings-acl.518
- Volume:
[Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026](/volumes/2026.findings-acl/)- Month:
- July
- Year:
- 2026
- Address:
- San Diego, California, United States
- Editors:
[Maria Liakata](/people/maria-liakata/),[Viviane P. Moreira](/people/viviane-p-moreira/unverified/),[Jiajun Zhang](/people/jiajun-zhang/unverified/),[David Jurgens](/people/david-jurgens/)- Venue:
[Findings](/venues/findings/)- SIG:
- Publisher:
- Association for Computational Linguistics
- Note:
- Pages:
- 10679–10696
- Language:
- URL:
[https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.518/](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.518/)- DOI:
- Cite (ACL):
- Varshini Reddy, Craig W Schmidt, Seth Ebner, Adam Wiemerslage, Yuval Pinter, and Chris Tanner. 2026. 1,729 vs. 1729: The Effect of Scripts and Formats on LLM Numeracy. InFindings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026, pages 10679–10696, San Diego, California, United States. Association for Computational Linguistics. - Cite (Informal):
[1,729 vs. 1729: The Effect of Scripts and Formats on LLM Numeracy](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.518/)(Reddy et al., Findings 2026)- PDF:
[https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.518.pdf](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.518.pdf)