Ferengi numbers are based on twenty rather than ten, like the maya number system of Earth.
In Ferengi the consonants are spelled out as they sound. Some words, which contain only consonants, are pronounced with an unwritten schwa or neutral vowel between them.
The spelling of Ferengi vowels is less consistent, all though most vowels have separate letters for them (excluding y/yy and %/%% which are spelled with the same letters respectively), Ferengi spelling typically abbreviates words by dropping the vowels where possible, though word initial or word final vowels are never dropped, except when the vowel is the schwa, which is mostly dropped everywhere.
The glottal stop is never written when word initial or when it occurs between vowels; the exception to this when a vowel occurred between vowels that are usually out together as diphthongs.
Diphthongs (fluid vowel pairs) are always written in full.
This is possibly the most unusual feature of Ferengi writing, which is not linear.
It is best descried as being read out from the center point, which is either an hexagon of Ferengi symbol, and on posters a line of text. Typically one starts on the left and reads from the center outwards the upper most line of text. The you work downwards still reading outward until you reach the bottom line, then you switch to the right had side and read outwards in the opposite direction going from top to bottom again. Ferengi one-line text signs are always written going from right to left.
/\
SENTENCE USING CAPITALS----/ \----- A SENTENCE USING CAPITALS
a minor sentence / \ a minor sentence
/ /\ \ a minor sentence
A MAJOR SENTENCE --------| | | | ------ A MAJOR SENTENCE
a minor sentence | \/ | a minor sentence
a minor sentence \ /
A MAJOR SENTENCE ---------- \ / ------ A MAJOR SENTENCE
a minor sentence \ / a minor sentence
\/
(Diagram courtesy of Tommy)
