It's usually clear from context, and also allows for some hilarious number puns.
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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I believe 499 would have been written CDXCIX. 994 should be written CMXCIV. You only use a single letter prefix to subtract (hence VIii not IIX) and you only use the two symbols prior to the one you're subtracting from, so you can subtract C or D from M but not X or VI.
This kept complexity of parsing down but also produced fewer forms that could be confused with real words!
There isn't really a scientific measure of how confusing something is linguistically that I am aware of. As you and other people have pointed out, there are plenty of languages that don't differentiate orthographically between numbers and letters. It's like asking whether people will confuse read and read. Yes, they probably will in some cases, but on some level speakers understand that these words are written identically and that you require context to figure it out. So they would know the difference much more often than not
You might follow the pattern of braille and have a prefix symbol that indicates the following letters are numbers. ⠼ functions like a number or hashtag symbol in front of letters A - J to indicate they're to be read as numbers, 1 - 9 & 0, not letters.