It is wrong to suppose that Sudokus are mathematical, per se. You can substitute other symbols and I have used a nine color scheme which proved to be very interesting (primaries, secondaries, black and white and brown and you have to keep in mind that the paper-white is NOT one of the givens!).

I memorized the Greek alphabet as a kid by substituting those symbols for the American alphabet in doing crosswords. I tried that with the Hebrew but quickly gave it up as no vowels ( no one-to-one correspondence for numbered spaces)and right to left just didn't work!

Have you ever tried making a Sudoku from scratch? Not an easy task at all.