Ferengi Lexicon ver. 2.6
Timothy Miller
Version 2.6
Written by Timothy Miller
Email: tmi...@suntan.eng.usf.edu
UsMail:
Timothy Miller
7519 Winging Way Drive
Tampa, FL 33615-1519
I ask the reader one favor, and that is to carefully read this text and
suggest any changes or additions, as well as point out any errors. All
feedback is welcome.
This file is intended to give the interested Trekker something new to
ponder. Take it to Trek conventions, give copies to friends, etc.
This file may be freely distributed to anyone, but you may not remove my
name or email address from the file, nor may you modify it in any way
except with the intention of sending the file directly back to me with
comments. On the other hand, if you want to publish this elsewhere, you
may freely do so, as long as the original content is preserved; I also ask
that you notify me of where it's being published.
This language, not connected with the Ferengi name, is copyrighted to me,
Timothy Miller. The name "Ferengi" is a trademark of Paramount, in
association with their fictional alien race.
To publish a book on this language, all I need to do is find time to write
the manuscript and submit it to a publisher. I will put together a complete
book that includes the complete language, as well as some history of the
Ferengi language and culture and two glossaries, one of regular words,
and one of an extensive vocabulary of economic and mathematical terms.
This is by far not a final version of the language. There isn't enough
vocabulary to get much of a point across, and there are many necessary
concepts missing. I will be working from feedback I get from other
trekkers as well as people in the Foreign Language Department of the
University of South Florida. Therefore, anything in this file is subject
to change from one version to the next. I will try to keep continuity so
you don't find yourself wasting time reading this, but I will correct
flaws when I find them, however I need to.
If you are interested in role-playing Star Trek, there is a multi-user,
interactive game on the internet called TrekMOO. Just telnet to
"trekmoo.microserve.com 2499".
Many thanks to Dr. Jacob Caflisch with the University of South Florida who
has provided me with valueable information and many suggestions for improving
this text. And also many thanks to David Salo from Madison, Wisconsin
who helped me much by performing a "historical analysis" of the language and
who began to put sentences together which helped me much in building this
language. David, where have you disappeared to?
Table of Contents:
1. Phonology: How do I pronounce Ferengi (tixEk) words?
2. Grammar: How do I put words and sentences together?
3. Vocabulary: What do these words mean?
4. Example Ferengi sentences, with English phonetics (yuck!)
5. English (American) words spelled using Ferengi phonetics
(to give you a better idea of how this writing system works)
6. Misc. notes.
Section 1 --- Phonlogy
This section describes a spelling system that I use to write Ferengi
words. It is a phonemic system that describes Ferengi words sound-for-
sound, with a specific, consistent sound assigned to each letter.
Upper and lower case letters are distinct from one another. Do not
try to pronounce any vowels as if the Ferengi words were English words;
your pronunciation will be wrong.
Phonemic spellings of Ferengi sounds, words, and sentences are often shown
beween slashes (/.../).
Mostly english words are used as examples, but for the vowels and foreign
consonants, it's very hard, so I do my best.
CONSONANTS
Stops
Voiceless Labial /p/ -- [p]et, sto[p]
Dental /t/ -- [t]op, po[t]
Velar /k/ -- [k]ite, ba[ck]
Uvular /q/ -- Like /k/ but the back of the tongue
is against the uvula, rather than
the velum.
Glottal /?/ -- the stop in the middle of uh[-]oh
Also in Cockney or Scottish bo[tt]le
Voiced Labial /b/ -- [b]et, sta[b]
Dental /d/ -- [d]umb, ba[d]
Velar /g/ -- [g]ood, ba[g]
Voiced Implosive
Labial /V/ -- pronounced like /b/, but air is sucked
into the mouth at the instant that the
lips part.
Dental /C/ -- pronounced like /d/, but ingressive
Velar /X/ -- like /g/, but ingressive
Fricatives
Voiceless Bilabial /P/ -- like /f/, but with the lips
Labiodental /f/ -- [f]an, hal[f]; becomes /P/ after /p/
Interdental /T/ -- [th]in, ba[th]
Dental /s/ -- [s]top, pa[ss]
Palatal /S/ -- [sh]ine, bo[sh]
Velar /x/ -- Ba[ch] (composer, German)
[H]annukah (Jewish holiday)
Analogy: s:t::x:k
Glottal /h/ -- [h]ello, [h]alf
Voiced Bilabial /B/ -- like /v/ but with the lips
Labiodental /v/ -- [v]ery, hal[v]e; becomes /B/ after /b/
Interdental /D/ -- [th]is, ba[th]e
Dental /z/ -- [z]ip, spa[zz]
Palatal /Z/ -- a[z]ure, mea[s]ure, [j]our (French)
Velar /G/ -- [gh]amma, [g]yro (both Modern Greek)
Analogies: z:d::G:g, s:z::x:G
Uvular /R/ -- Pa[r]is (French), d[r]ei (German)
[gh]adha (Arabic for 'lunch')
Like /G/ but with tongue against
the uvula.
Glides
Voiced Labial /w/ -- [w]et, ho[w]
Palatal /j/ -- [y]ou, bo[y]
Retroflex Palatal /r/ -- [r]un (seldom used this way)
Liquids
Voiced Dental /l/ -- [l]ive, ta[ll]
Nasals
Voiced Labial /m/ -- [m]ud, spa[m]
Dental /n/ -- [n]ed, fa[n]
Velar /N/ -- ba[ng], si[ng], [ng]uyen
Plosive /M/ -- lips together or back of tongue against
velum with velum up, holding in air.
Then air is allowed to suddenly excape
through nose by lowering
of velum, while vocal chords vibrate.
VOWELS
Tense
Front Unrounded High /i/ -- b[ee]t, p[ee]k
Mid /e/ -- b[ai]t, p[ay]
Low /&/ -- b[a]t, c[a]t, p[a]ddle (not in Ferengi)
Rounded High /y/ -- m[ue]de (German), t[u] (French)
Say /i/, but with lips rounded for /u/.
Central Unrounded Mid /^/ -- b[u]t, m[u]d. In English, this
is allophonic with /@/, but here it is
strongly tense and distinct from /@/.
Retroflex /r/ -- [r]un, f[ur], wat[er]. These are
the American pronounciation. The Ferengi
isn't as retroflex as American, and it's
more rounded. Some times, it sounds like
a retroflex form of /O/.
Back Rounded High /u/ -- m[oo]d, f[oo]d, g[oo]p
Mid /o/ -- b[oa]t, t[o]ne, tac[o]
(NOT Brittish /@U/)
Lax
Front Unrounded High /I/ -- b[i]t, m[i]lk
Mid /E/ -- b[e]t, f[e]lt
Central Unrounded Mid [@] -- Schwa. Fers[e] (German), c[o]mputer
Low /a/ -- m[a]nn (German), t[a]sk (Brittish),
but also often br[a], b[o]x (American)
Back Unrounded High /U/ -- b[oo]k, f[oo]t
Mid /O/ -- b[o]y, w[a]ter (Brittish), m[o]re
Gap [-] -- This usually represents a syllable
boundary.
The following have letters in the ferengi alphabet but are no longer used.
After '=>' is what the sound usually collapses into in the modern tongue,
although they are often simply slient.
Stops
Voiced Uvular /Q/ -- Voiced version of /q/ => /g/
Voiced Implosive
Uvular /K/ -- Ingressive verson of /Q/ => /X/
Fricatives
Voiceless Uvular /H/ -- Voiceless version of /R/ => /h/, /x/
Tense
Front Rounded Mid /%/ -- m[oe]gen (German), s[oeu]r (French)
=> /E/, /^/
Say /e/ or /E/ with lips rounded for /o/
Ferengi have the tendancy nasalize vowels. This means that the velum is
lowered so that air can resonate through the nasal cavities as well as in
the mouth. For example, in English, all vowels before nasal consonants
are nasalized. The nasalization in Ferengi has no effect on meaning, but
there is a pattern to it:
Front vowel + /n/ -- nasalize vowel and often drop /n/
Back vowel + /N/ -- nasalize vowel and often drop /N/
Rounded vowel + /m/ -- nasalize vowel, but don't drop /m/
In most languages, vowels preceding nasal consonants must be nasalized in
order for there to not be a drastic change in air flow from the oral-vowel
to the nasal consonant. In Ferengi, though, this isn't always the case,
but it produces a peculiar result. The Nasal Release listed above is an
artifact of an oral vowel being pronounced before a nasal consonant. The
sound /M/ is the result of the air flow being halted by the tongue on the
mouth (reaching the point of articulation for the nasal consonant), then
suddenly being released through the nose. The proper nasal consonant then
follows that release, but it often overwhelmed by the sound of the nasal
stop.
As an example, consider the case where you try to pronounce /an/ but with
/a/ being an oral vowel. Due to changes in air flow, you actually get
something that sounds like /adMn/. Similarly, /am/ becomes /abMm/ and
/aN/ become /agMN/. The in order to distinguish this odd case of oral vowel
before nasal consonant, the Ferengi write out the /M/ phoneme, but the
do not write the following nasal consonant since it is overwhelmed by the
change in airflow and not heard well. Instead, they write the voiced stop
before the nasal stop to show the point of articulation and the nasal
consonant can be inferred from that. This phonomenon results in the
following correspondences:
/m/ - /bM/
/n/ - /dM/
/N/ - /gM/
Long (double in length) vowels are written as the letter doubled.
The basic vowels used are &, a, o, i, u, ^, e, y, O, and r. The others are
allophones of their corresponding tense vowels. Short (in length) vowels
may be pronounced lax (/I/ for /i/, /U/ for /u/, /E/ for /e/), but long
vowels are always as written. In cases where /i/, /u/, and /e/ are
required, they are in free variation with /I/, /U/, and /E/, respectively.
In cases where /I/, /U/, and /E/ are required, they are NOT interchangable
with /i/, /u/, and /e/.
Dental consonants are similar to English Alveolar consonants, except the
tongue is against the back of the teeth, rather than behind them.
In most languages, adjacent consonants of different voice value tend toward
both voiced or voiceless. For example, in the word "dogs", the 's' is
voiced, taking the voiced quality from the 'g'. Compare this to "cats",
where 's' can't be voiced, and note that it is very hard to say "catz" with
the 'z' maintaining its voiced quality. This process of taking a quality
of a neighboring consonant is called assimilation. In Ferengi, this
process could cause trouble since it would cause some meaning to be lost.
An example of where is does happen is the imperative ending /vt/. Some
times it is articulated as [vd] and some times as [ft], while some Ferengi
do pronounce it as [v@t] some times. For places where this is a problem,
Ferengi insert a schwa or gap so that phonemes can maintain their proper
voice quality.
The system I use for transcribing the Ferengi language relies heavily on
the actual Ferengi writing system. In the language there are places where
schwa [@] and gap [-] are inserted that the Ferengi writing system
leaves out and therefore so has my phonemic transcription method.
Due to problem associated with this, I have decided to insert [-] and [@]
into phonetic transcriptions. These phonetic transcriptions are
shown in brackets ([...]), while the phonemic transcriptions will always
be shown between slashes (/.../). Additionally, phonetic transcriptions
will have [w], [j], [?], and [h] inserted wherever environment causes it,
and primary stress ['] and secondary stress [,] will be inserted before the
stressed syllable whenever necessary.
If one word ends in a vowel and the next begins with a vowel, they are
often not seperated by a glottal stop, but rather an appropriate glide
or pause. The corresponding vowels and glides are:
i - j
e - j
y - j or w
u - w
o - w
a - h (not really a glide)
& - h
^ - h
r - r (the consonal form)
The lax vowels some times have a weaker form of the same glides.
Ferengi syllable stress is placed on the syllable of the stem which contains
the case vowel, not considering suffixes or prefixes. If there is no stem
which contains a case vowel, stress is placed on a suffix which contains
a case vowel.
In Ferengi /d/ and /t/ are usually pronounced distinctly, but in many cases
where they occur between vowels, they have reduced to an alveolar tap
(like a Spanish single 'r') where a distinction between them is not important.
This not being confusing enough, one of Ferengal's other major languages
(n&Zo) treats an alveolar tap and /R/ as lexically equivalent, so native
speakers of that other language will often pronounce /R/ in the place of /t/
and /d/ when speaking the language described in this text (tixEk).
Ferengi /T/ and /D/ are listed as interdentals for the benefit of the
English speaker. While they are some times pronounced this way, and
considered to be quite acceptable, more often, they are actually realized
as alveolar lateral fricatives. /D/ is like pronouncing /l/, but the sides
of the tongue are higher, creating friction with the teeth. /T/ is just
a voiceless of the same.
The Ferengi letters have a specific order, and each has a numeric value and
a name. They are shown here in order, first all of the left column, then
all of the right column.
Letter Name Value Letter Name Value
p /pe/ 0 G /Gi/ 20^5
D /Di/ 1 f /fy/ 20^6
g /ga/ 2 u /un/ 20^7
C /Co/ 3 U /Up/ 20^8
t /ta/ 4 h /h^q/ 20^9
k /ki/ 5 K /KaN/ 20^10
s /sa/ 6 M /edM/ 20^11
z /zi/ 7 o /ox/ 20^12
m /mO/ 8 O /Oj/ 20^13
N /Na/ 9 Q /Qo/ 20^14
n /ne/ 10 y /yt/ 20^15
w /wi/ 11 & /&T/ 20^16
v /vo/ 12 b /bZa/ 20^17
x /xe/ 13 P /Pu/ 20^18
j /j&/ 14 e /eS/ 20^19
d /dy/ 15 E /EZ/ 20^-1
V /Ve/ 16 B /BEt/ 20^-2
S /sa/ 17 Z /Zr/ 20^-3
q /qu/ 18 l /laj/ 20^-4
X /Xa/ 19 i /ija/ 20^-5
a /aq/ ordinal I /Is/ 20^-6
? /?E?/ 20^1 % /%z/ 20^-7
H /Hu/ 20^2 T /Tin/ 20^-8
r /rf/ 20^3 ^ /^d/ 20^-9
R /Ri/ 20^4 @ /puko/ radix
Section 2 --- Grammar
PRONOUNS
First, it must be explained why the terms 'agent' and 'patient' are being
used rather than the more familiar 'subject' and 'object'. Normally in an
active voice sentence, the agent is the subject and the patient is the
direct object, but with a passive voice sentence, this is not the case.
Pronouns are usually attached to the beginning of the verb. If the verb (in
the active voice) has only an agent pronoun, the pronoun particle is attached
to the beginning of the verb. If the verb has both an agent and a patient,
then agent pronoun particles are used for both the agent and patient (agent
then patient). If the verb has a patient only, then the patient paticle is
used. The patient form is usually only used when alone.
For a passive voice sentence (when /ub/ is attached to the verb), the roles
of agent and patient, with respect to subject and object, are reversed. That
is to say, the subject of an active sentence is the object of a passive
sentence, and vice versa. For example, if one were to say "I have been seen",
the patent pronoun /s/ would have to be used for 'I', rather than /t/, since
what that sentence is saying is equivalent to "<some unspecified entity> has
seen ME."
Genitive case uses the agent form. Dative uses the agent form when there
is motion to/from the indirect object, while the patient form is used when
only the position of the indirect object is implied.
In this list, the agent phoneme is given, then the patient, then the
description:
t s -- I, first person singular
k f -- you/thou, second person singular
? h -- one/he/she, third person singular, affector
q R -- it, third person singular, affected
m S -- it, third person singular, instrument
(/m/ turns to /t/ when both /m/ and /S/ are used.
/tS/ sounds like 'ch' in English)
p T -- it, third person singular, inanimate
d z -- we, first person plural, including person spoken to
n Z -- we, first person plural, excluding person spoken to
(/n/ turns to /d/ when both /n/ and /Z/ are used.
/dZ/ sounds like 'j' in English)
g v -- you/ye, second person plural
b D -- they, third person plural
x l -- that, last sentense/concept, demonstrative pronoun
CASE/TYPE PARTICLES
Ferengi has a set of vowels that are attached to word roots to show what
type of word it is. Some Latin case names are used, even though Ferengi word
types do not correspond well with Latin cases. These vowels are attached
to the end of the ROOT of a word.
o Default/Agent
^ Patient
i Dative (indirect object/prepositional)
u Genitive/Possessive
e
y Adjective/Modifier
a Verb
r Verb 'to be' (attached to adjectival root)
& Verb - when the topic is considered to be false or hypothetical
VERB PARTICLES
Verb modifiers are items that are attached to the end of the verb,
participle, or gerund, immediately following the case vowel. They are
listed in the relative order in which they are usually attached.
Aspect (listen in order of most common usage)
s, (nothing) unspecified/infinitive
t continuing/progressing
v complete
k incomplete
vt imperative/emphatic
Auxiliary
p Not/Negation
z Question
m Plural (Actually for nouns, added after case particle)
ub Passive
CONSTRUCTING VERB PHRASES
Now that you have pronouns, cases, and modifiers, you need to know now to
attach them to verbs. Verb phrases in Ferengi usually end up being single
words, and they can get rather long. Here, I will build a few example
words, using the root for 'see', which is /v/:
"Have I not seen you?"
t {I} k {you} v {see} a {verb} v {complete} p {not} z {question}
/tkvavpz/
[t@k'vav-p@z]
"Do I see myself?"
t {I} s {me} v {see} a {verb} z {question}
/tsvaz/
[ts'vaz]
"I will have been seen."
s {me} v {see} a {verb} v {complete} ub {passive}
/svavub/
[s'va-vub]
"To be seen"
v {see} a {verb} s {infintive} ub {passive}
/vasub/
['va-sub]
In the case of imperatives, the pronoun (/k/ or /g/) is usually given
explicitly.
"See!" (command to no one in particular or emphatic)
v {see} a {verb} vt {imperative}
/vavt/
[vavt]
"(thou) see!"
k {thou} vavt
/kvavt/
[k@'vavt]
"(ye) see!"
g {ye} vavt
/gvavt/
[g@'vavt]
There are some other situations to consider. Gerunds are simply made by
giving a verb root a noun (default, etc.) ending, plus an aspect.
Participles are distinguised from adjectives by having an aspect particle
attached.
"seeing" - /vyt/ (participle) ("_Seeing_ this in context, we...")
"seeing" - /vot/ (gerund) ("_Seeing_ is believing")
"having seen" - /vyv/ (participle), /vov/ (gerund)
PARTICLES STANDING ALONE
There are cases when some of the above listed particles and attachments
will have to stand alone. For example, the word "my" is the pronoun /t/,
attached to the genitive particle /u/, making the word /tu/.
Pronouns can even stand alone if it is necessary to emphasize them. In that
case, patient pronouns are used in conjuntion with the patient case
particle in proper circumstances. For example, "I see you", which is /tkva/,
can be split up into:
to {I + agent} f^ {thou + patient} va {see + verb}
/to f^ va/
Genative pronouns act as adjectives and therefore follow the word they
modify:
"My hand"
kaxo {hand + default} tu {I + genative}
/kaxo tu/
[ka'xo tu]
In cases where the possession is less imporant than something else in the
sentence, genative particles can be attached to the end of the word, so the
above phrase would become /kaxotu/, which results in virtually no change
in pronounciation, but in writing, it shows a difference.
As noted above, the dative case uses agent pronoun forms to imply motion
or transfer, and it uses patient pronoun forms to imply location. As an
example, consider /ti/ (i + dative), which means "to me" and /si/ (me +
dative), which means more like "for me", and which can mean other things
with a preposition such as /uf/, making /ufsi/, meaning "under me". While
this particle can stand anywhere in the part of a sentence in which it
belongs, the default position is as a suffix for the object which is being
moved, if there is one. Here are some examples:
"Give me money!"
/ktxavt bv^ti/
[k@t'xavt 'bB^-ti]
(this could be clipped to /txa bv^/, meaning "Give money.")
"He sells them food."
/?k?a wl^bi/
[?@k'?a w@'l^-bi]
"He sits under it."
/?arfa ufTi/
[?ar'fa uf'Ti]
It is extremely rare, but /u/ by itself can act as a definate article
("the"). It follows the word that is definate. I do not know where it is
approriate, so I suggest that you don't bother using it. Mostly because
attaching /u/ to the end of a word usually makes it possessive. There is no
indefinate article ("a", "an").
WORD ORDERING and EMPHASIS
In most cases, when one word modifies another, the modifier (adjective or
adverb) immediately follows the word it modifies. The phonemic system
used here often shows them seperate, but the Ferengi often attach the
modifer directly to the end of the modified word in their writing system.
However, there is no other default word ordering in the sentence. Since
all parts are marked in the word by a case particle, there is no need for
a specific ordering to the words. Therefore, the Ferengi take advantage
of this for emphasis. Words are generally placed in order of importance,
and loosely in order of newest-information to oldest-informaton.
For example, if you wanted to say, "_I_ see you", with "I" being very
important, then the sentence would be ordered thus:
/to kva/
[to k@'va]
However, if the verb "see" were more important, it could be ordered like
this:
/va to f^/
But most often, pronouns aren't emphasized, and the sentence would simply
be /tkva/ [t@k'va].
Now consider a sentence that doesn't need much emphasis, but is presenting
you with new information. Take the sentence, "Dak sees PRaaN", where
you know who /Dak/ and /PRaaN/ are, but you don't know that one sees the
other (which is why you are being told this sentence in the first place).
Then the sentence would be ordered thus:
/va Dako PRaaN^/
[va Da'ko PRaa'N^/
In the case of imperatives, the pronoun (/k/ or /g/) is given explicitly.
In addition to word ordering, there is a suffix which is often used for
emphasis. As an example, here is the Ferengi standard greeting:
bj {profit} a {verb} vt {imperative}
/bjavt/
[bjaft] or ['bja-v@t]
This sentence means "Profit!", but it is not directed at anyone (no agent
pronoun), so in actuality, its meaning is a strong emphasis on the word
'profit', which is what Ferengi like to make a lot of.
But this /vt/ attachment has spread to other words, and can be used to
emphasize something. /Gal/ is the root of "red", and therefore, /Galy/
is the adjectival form of the word used in speech. If you wanted to say
"RED" or "very red" or "really red", putting much emphasis on the fact that
something is red, then you could use the word /Galyvt/. Since adjectives
must follow the nouns they modify, this can be very useful.
THE VERB "TO BE"
There is no root word for "to be" in Ferengi. Rather, it is a vowel that
is attached to an adjective, turing the adjective into part of a verb
phrase. From above, you saw that /Gal/ is the root for "red". If something
"IS" red, then you attach the vowel /r/ and get /Galr/. If _I_ am red, then
you get this:
t {I} Gal {red} r {is/am}
/tGalr/
[t@'Ga-lr]
In a case where you absolutely NEED the verb "to be", then you simply
stand it alone with aspect and auxilaries attached to the end.
"to be"
/rs/
"to have been"
/rv/
"to not be" or "not to be"
/rsp/
[rsp]
"to be been" (which makes no sense in English; passive of "to be")
/rsub/
['r-sub]
"to be?"
/rsz/
['r-s@z]
"To be or not to be, that is the question.
/rs mala rsp, xr zil^/
/r/ is seldom used as just shown above, but it has been found in cases where
an object being referred to was in visual proximity to the speaker and it
was very important. For example:
"This money IS mine!"
/rs bvo tu/
[rs bvo tu]
"My name IS Silu."
/rs dZfkotu silu^/
[rs dZ@f'ko-tu si'lu-w^]
QUANTIFIERS
In English, quantifiers act just like adjectives, but in Ferengi, where
numbers and quantities are very important, words that specify how much
there is of something go before the nouns they modify. They are used as
shown with out any sort of ending attached. When one is being used as a
noun, a proper case particle is attached.
/puk/ None of
/kyf/ All of/Every
/Goz/ Many
/Zrn/ Some of
/gip/ Not all of
/fis/ Few
/kjy/ Only
/gelm/ More
NUMBERS
The Ferengi number system is a highly organized, efficient way of
communicating numbers that partly evolved from their heavy use of numbers
and partly contrived by the Ferengi in order to improve further their
efficiency. You will soon find the number system to be very elegant and
often more straightforward than English. The only drawback is that the
number system is not base 10 (decimal), but rather base 20 (vigesimal).
Let's begin with the names of their first 20 numbers:
0 /pen/ 10 /ned/
1 /Din/ 11 /wix/
2 /gid/ 12 /vog/
3 /Ca/ 13 /xee/
4 /tal/ 14 /j&t/
5 /kip/ 15 /dy/
6 /saa/ 16 /Vet/
7 /zik/ 17 /San/
8 /mO/ 18 /qun/
9 /Nat/ 19 /Xaw/
There are next two very important things you can do these words. Firstly,
which will become imporant later, if you add /i/ to the end of a number,
you make it negative.
But of more immediate concern, if you change the final consontant to (or
add it to the end if the last letter is a vowel) an /m/ to the end, you
are making a number with is 20 to the power of that number. For example:
/Dim/ = 20^1 = 20
/gim/ = 20^2 = 400
/Cam/ = 20^3 = 8,000
/tam/ = 20^4 = 160,000
etc.......
To understand a number when written in words, you then have to understand
the ordering. Put in technical terms, given a number-word, if a word of
lower intrinsic value is to the right, it is simply added, while if
a word of lower intrinsic value is to the left, it is multiplied. You can
see this in English where the number '202' is written "two-hundred two".
You can see that the 'two' to the left is multiplied by the 'hundred', while
the two on the right is simply added.
Note that since you can make a number negative by a simple addition if /i/,
you can 'add' a negative number to a larger number to improve efficiency.
In fact, you can do that all you want, but it can get complicated and
and lead to confusion when overused. Ferengi are people, not computers,
so when the numbers get too complicated with negatives, it is often better
to sacrifice efficiency for understandability.
Here are some examples:
42 /gid-Dim gid/ (2*20 + 2)
457 /gim gid-Dim San/ (400 + 2*20 + 17)
7999 /Xaw-gim Xaw-dim Xaw/ (19*400 + 19*20 + 19)
7999 /Cam Dini/ (8000 + -1)
7980 /Xaw-gim Xaw-dim/ (19*400 + 19*20)
7980 /Cam Dimi/ (8000 + -20)
Now, note something interesting and useful. Take the number /gid/ (2), for
example. When adding /m/ or /i/, you have to process the suffixes in order
from left to right. Observe:
/gid/ 2
/gim/ 20^2 = 400
/gidi/ 2 * -1 = -2
/gimi/ 20^2 * -1 = -400
/gidim/ 20^(-2) = 1/400 = 0.0025
/gidimi/ 20^(-2) * -1 = -0.0025
As you can see, the /i/ at the end makes the whole number negative, whereas
if it is encountered first, it makes the number negative before it becomes
the exponnent for 20.
This allows one to communicate in terms of fractions with relative ease and
it has the advantage over English in that you can't lose your place when
someone reads off consecutive digits after the decimal (or vigesimal or
radix) point.
0.05 /Dinim/ (20^(-1))
0.5 /Dinim ned/ (20^(-1) * 10)
0.55 /Dinim ned Dinim/ (20^(-1) * 10 + 20^(-1))
The rule of ordering for 0.5 may look backward at first, but it is
consistent in that /Dinim/ is of lower intrinsic value than /ned/, and is
therefore multiplied.
This number system can become exceedingly difficult for the unexperienced,
especially when dealing with fractions. There is no SIMPLE conversion
between decimal and vigesimal like there is between, for example, hexidecimal
and binary. In order to make things easier, I will later add a piece of
C code to the end of this text file that will convert from decimal to
vigesimal and also written form.
In dealing with computers, the Ferengi have adapted to using their number
system for communicating in Hexidecimal. This can get very confusing,
because it sounds like they're using their base-20 number system if you
don't realise that they're using base 16. Basically take all the 20's
above and replace them with 16's and only use the digits from 0 to 15.
If someone did that in English, using our normal speech for base-10 to
communicate base 8 numbers, then someone saying "twenty" would actually
mean "16" (decimal), rathern than "20" (decimal).
Likewise, you could use this number system to communicate base 10, but it
would be to a Ferengi like it would be to us for someone to use our number
system to communicate in base 5. When they said "one-hundred", they'd
actually mean "25" (decimal), rather than "100" (decimal).
Ferengi treat all cardinal numbers as either nouns or quantifiers, depending
on context, so if a number is being used as a quantifier, it precedes the
noun it modifies.
On the other hand, ordinal numbers are treated as adjectives and follow noun.
Given a cardinal number, constructed as explained above, you simply attach
/aj/ to the end of the rightmost element. When writing out digits, /a/ is
appended to the end of the number, but does not have a line through its
baseline like the other digits.
/penaj/ 1st
/Dimaj/ 20th
/gid-Dim gidaj/ 42nd
Each Ferengi letter has a numerical value. To write a number you can simply
write out the digits (using the first 20 letters of the alphabet), from left
to right, highest order of magnitude to lowest. However, numbers which
contain a lot of zeros can get lengthy and tedious to write, so values have
been assigned to 28 of the remaining 30 letters of the Ferengi alphabet.
They start at /?/ (20^1), go to /e/ (20^19), then from /E/ (20^-1) to /^/
(20^-9). These can be inserted into a number, eliminating the need for extra
zeros to the right. For example, 8000 can be written out as _Dppp_ or it can
be simply written as _r_. Further, 8001 can be written as _DppD_, or as
_rD_. Other shortcuts can be made, such as 159999 being written out as
_XXXX_, or as _R-D_, where '-' here represents the Ferengi symbol for
subtraction.
A vigesimal point is represented by @ seperating the whole number on the left
from the fraction on the right.
The shortcut works for fractions too. 0.000125 can be represented as either
_@ppD_, or as _Z_, for example.
When written in digits, all letters except a final /a/ in an ordinal have a
horizontal line drawn through their baseline. In this text, that line will
be represented by replacing the /'s with _'s.
Since the Ferengi have been interacting with other races, they have discovered
that they are practically alone in their use of a base 20 number system. For
efficiency, they still use their own, but when the need for a base 10 number
system arises, to avoid confusion with their own, they borrow the number
system, lock, stock, and barrel, from the Klingons. You can get the Klingon
number system from reading the Klingon dictionary.
QUESTION WORDS
The following is a list of roots for basic question words. To them, you
would attach the proper case ending for its place in the sentence.
Additionally, the verb needn't necessarily have the question auxiliary
/z/ attached, and if the verb is "to be", the verb can be omitted
altogether.
/ug/ Who/whom (affector)
/mw/ Who/whom (affected)
/uq/ What (instrument)
/am/ What (inanimate/default)
/pod/ Why
/in/ When
/pk/ Where [p@k]
/a?/ How (by what means)
/az/ How (in what manner)
/Ng/ How much (/Ngo/ = [N-go])
When Ferengi greet each other, it is polite to ask how one feels. In
Ferengi, you do not ask how one feels; you ask what is the state of one's
finances or inner peace. The root word for "inner peace" is /kin/. Here
is the proper form of the question:
"How are you?"
amo {what + nominative} kino {inner-peace + default} ku {you + genitive}
/amo kinoku/
[a'mo ki'no-ku]
As you can see, there is no "is" in this sentence, and there is no question
particle /p/. These can be implicit in the use of /amo/.
English puts predicate nominatives ('object' of "to be" sentence) into the
nominative (default) case, but Ferengi does not. If I were to say "I am he"
in Ferengi, it would be /to rs h^/ (or whatever word ordering you choose),
which puts /h^/ ("him", actually) into the patient case. However, there
are cases where this rule is violated, and the above greeting is one of
those cases where a gramatically incorrect statement is so often used
that it becomes accepted as standard. (Like "It is me" in English which is
technically wrong but generally accepted.)
CONJUNCTIONS
When you need to join together more than one word as the subject of or
object of a sentence, in English, you use conjuntions. The same is done
in Ferengi. Most often, the conjunction is placed between each of the
elements of a list. The whole list is kept together as a unit, and the
items are listed in order of importance or arbitrarily, depending on the
point of the sentence.
"A and B and C and D...."
/A wen B wen C wen D..../
However, due to influence from alien languages, some Ferengi have adopted
a slightly more efficient (but sometimes confusing) approach:
"A, B, C, and D...."
/A, B, C, wen D..../
Also, in place of /wen/, the suffix /wn/ can be attached to the end of each
word:
"A and B and C and D...."
/Awn Bwn Cwn D..../
When more than one pronoun is the agent or patuent of a sentence, the
pronouns are detached from the verb:
"You and I see him."
kown {you + default + and} to {I + default} ?va {him + see + verb}
/kown to ?va/
or
/ko wen to ?va/
Other conjuntions function in the same way.
and -wn or wen
or (inclusive) lala
or (exclusive) mala
but imp
GAPPING
It is often the case that someone will have a list of subjects and objects
all associated by the same verb in the same sentence. Consider this
sentence:
"John ordered hotdogs, Dan ordered a hamburger, and Sue ordered an apple."
Using gapping, one can remove some unnecessary redundancy and come out with
this:
"John ordered hotdogs, Dan a hamburger, and Sue an apple."
This same sort of thing can be done in Ferengi, but due to the flexibility
in word-ordering, there are a number of possible combinations. For the
following, "A" is an agent, "V" is a verb, and "P" is a patient.
First is given the full version, followed by the collapsed version.
Parentheses are used here ONLY as a visual aid.
(A1 V P1), (A2 V P2), wen (A3 V P3).
can become
(A1 V P1), (A2 P2), wen (A3 P3). -or-
(A1, A2, wen A3) V (P1, P2, wen P3).
(P1 V A1), (P2 V A2), wen (P3 V A3).
can become
(P1 A1), (P2 A2), wen (P3 V A3). -or-
(P1, P2, wen P3) V (A1, A2, wen A3).
(V P1 A1), (V P2 A2), wen (V P3 A3).
can become
(V P1 A1), (P2 A2), wen (P3 A3).
(V A1 P1), (V A2 P2), wen (V A3 P3).
can become
(V A1 P1), (A2 P2), wen (A3 P3).
(A1 P1 V), (A2 P2 V), wen (A3 P3 V).
can become
(A1 P1), (A2 P2), wen (A3 P3 V).
(P1 A1 V), (P2 A2 V), wen (P3 A3 V).
can become
(P1 A1), (P2 A2), wen (P3 A3 V).
When the agents and patients of the reduced parts are pronouns, you can
put the pronouns together followed by /a/. For example /tkva/ with the
verb removed becomes /tka/.
/tkva, tsva, wen ?pva/ "I-you-see, I-me-see, and he-it-sees."
[t@k'va, ts'va, wen ?@p'va]
can become
/tka, tsa, wen ?pva/ "I-you-, I-me-, and he-it-sees."
[t@'ka, tsa, wen ?@p'va]
This relative ordering can be quite important. Here are some rules. The
first two override the second two.
-- if the verb is last, the last group has the verb
-- if the verb is first, the first group has the verb
-- if the agent is first, the verb is at the first group or in the center
-- if the patient is first, the verb is at the last group or in the center
PHATIC SPEECH
As with any language, Ferengi has a number of commonly used phrases that
are used for greeting and politeness. The commonly used Ferengi greeting
show a strong bias toward the Ferengi general mindset and attitude.
The Ferengi word for 'hello' expresses their strong desire for acquiring
profit. It is a verb which means 'profit', is has the emphatic/imperative
suffix attached, and it does not have any pronoun attached, showing that
'profit' is basically a very important thing. You could also say that it
is commanding that no one in particular make profit.
"Hello!"
/bjavt/
"Profit!" (imperative/emphatic)
Normally when you say 'goodbye' to someone, you usually have the wish to
see them again (so you can sell them more things). The Ferengi use the
same very important word /bjavt/, plus an expression of interest in
being seen again. This is very formal:
"Goodbye!"
/bjavt vatub/
"Profit! To be seen."
To be a little less formal, the Ferengi have the following three ways
of saying goodbye that also are not confusing about whether it is the
speaker or the listener who is leaving:
/svakub/ (I will be seen) "I'm leaving now... bye."
[s'va-kub]
/fvakub/ (Thou will be seen) "You're leaving. See you later."
[f@'va-kub]
/vvakub/ (Ye will be seen) "You all are leaving. See you later."
[v@'va-kub]
It is always polite to ask how someone is feeling, etc. The Ferengi have
discovered the value of being polite to their customers and suppliers, and
to a Ferengi, one way of being polite is to express a positive interest in
how well one's business is going. The Ferengi have a root word /kin/ which
means a number of emotionally associated things, including "inner peace"
and "economic status".
"How are you?"
/amo kinoku/
"What is your inner-peace/economic-state?"
When greeting anyone, it is polite to refer to them with a title that
honors him. In any case where you don't know what the title of the person
to whom you are speaking, or you just want to be brief about it, you
can refer to them as /blk/ [bl@k]. /blk/ is used regardless of relative
rank or standing.
In cases where you do know what the rank of someone is, these are the
standard ranks:
Pilch /piltS/
Zok /zak/
TarkMon /tarkman/
QuoMon /qwoman/
KoMon /koman/
Sub DaiMon /ufdeman/
DaiMon /deman/
Miser /ekfaple/
Sub Nagus /ufneg^s/
Nagus /neg^s/
When you are done making a transaction, you often say "thank you", which
is responded to by "you're welcome". The Ferengi do something similar.
Their equivalent of both "thank you" and "you're welcome" is /tsax/, which
is quite often shortened to /ts/. This merely expresses a satisfaction with
the completion of an exchange. There is no equivalent of "please". Rather,
the Ferengi express a desire and then conclude by refering to the person as
/blk/, as described above.
GENDER
Ferengi has noun classes, and each noun belongs implicitly to one of those
classes. The classes are affector, affected, instrument, and inanimate, and
each has its own pronoun used in everyday speech just like "he", "she", and
"it".
Many linguists like to call this kind of word classing "gender". If one
were to assign the gender terms "male", "female", and "neuter" to the
Ferengi noun classes, then LOOSELY, you would have this arrangement:
affector masculine animate
affected feminine animate
instrument masculine inanimate or neuter1
inanimate feminine inanimate or neuter2
The antecedant of a pronoun is almost always of the corresponding noun class,
and this frequently aids in making complex sentences easier to understand.
Many compound words have a class which is indepentant of the componnent words,
but by default, the class is based on the last componnent. Some suffixes also
carry a class, and the resulting word always takes on the class of the suffix.
When the suffix does not have a class, the resulting word keeps its original
class.
ABBREVIATIONS and COMPOUNDING
Ferengi has the tendancy to compound words when two or more words are part of
a single concept. For example, below, "language-study" is mentioned.
The root for 'language' or 'speak' is /pZ/, and the root for 'study' is /pf/.
They are simply stuck together to form a new word which means "language-
study".
Older Ferengi compounds, and even some newer ones, are not simple compounds
of their componnents. Instead, part of either word is removed. For example,
the root for 'trade' is /fEt/, and the root for agreement is /&k/. The
compound, which means 'deal', is not /fEt&k/, as one might expect, but
instead, it has collapsed into /f&k/. This was originally due in many cases
to frequent use and the need for efficiency, which caused people to start
sluring certain words to speak faster. Now, this is simply a feature of the
language. If a compound is important enough, it will be collapsed.
Ferengi do not make acronyms like we do in English, but they do use something
similar. The tendancy is to take the first consonant and the first vowel
from each word and pronounce the combination as a word.
PREPOSITIONS and THE "DATIVE" CASE
Ferengi has a case which is associated almost exclusively with prepositional
phrases, so I refer to it as the dative case. The dative particle is /i/,
and it is used to specify location or direction.
When a pronoun is in the dative case, /i/ is attached to the end. If the
pronoun is the agent form, then the word specifies that motion, transfer,
or direction is involved. If the pronoun is the patient form, then location
is specified. For example, /ti/ means "to me" or "from me", while /si/ can
mean "of me" or "for me", etc. With pronouns, the dative particle /i/ is
always used. When used as an indirect object, dative pronouns are often
attached as a suffix to the patient. When a preposition is attached
to a pronoun, the pronoun is also put into the dative case.
If a noun is in the dative case and the implied preposition is "to",
"of", "for", or "from", then /i/ is simply used as the case particle for
that noun.
"For the love of money"
/idli bvi/
If a preposition and a noun are involved, the preposition is attached as
a prefix to the noun. If only location is implied, the case particle is
often omitted, although classically, it takes the agent case. If
motion is involved toward the noun, the dative case it used, while if
motion is involved away from the noun, the patient case is used (like
German 'her' and 'hin', but now as well developed).
There are words which mean things like "to", "from", etc. to avoid confusion,
but they are not used very often, since subtle nuances can usually be picked
up from context. For example, consider these sentences:
"He gives it to me."
/?ptxa ti/
[?@p-t@'xa ti]
"He takes it from me."
/?psja ti/
[?@p'sja ti]
Here, there is no confusion about which /ti/ implies "from" and which implies
"to", since the verb indicates the direction.
There are a few postpositions which change the meaning of a single word,
unlike prepositions which can head a phrase.
STUDY OF LANGUAGE
The Ferengi have a college which devotes itself to the study of language, with
the hopes of understanding the languages of other races for better trade
relations. If you've ever wondered why Ferengi speak English so well, it's
because they realize how imporant it is to communicate and trade with
Federation peoples. [All other races are dubbed in. <grin>] Fortunately,
the Ferengi phonology allows them to pronounce a wide variety of alien
languages without much difficulty. Their language school is called:
/bsto frengy pZpfi/ [b@'sto fr-en'gy p@Z'pPi],
which translates as "Ferengi school of language-study".
This is abreviated as /bofepi/.
Section 3 --- Vocabulary
The following is a list of many Ferengi words with their English meanings
to the right. They are in no particular order, and case endings are not
attached. If there is a dash (-) at the beginning, then it's a suffix,
and if there is a dash at the end, it is a prefix. When a suffix is
attached to a word, no case particle is attached. Between the Ferengi word
and its meaning is the noun class (if it has one). The class is expressed
by giving the proper 3rd-person agent pronoun.
arf sit
v see
tx give
sj take
sl go
m have
mn want
da read
pj write
sxt exist
pZ speak
il buy
bj profit
k? sell
ndf open
vw strike/hit
n act/do
eek make
dxn punish
idl love/like
lf need
wl eat
ekf keep (an object)
ntg keep (state), maintain
zil question
St be able
dk get/acquire/obtain/acquisition
xD spend (money)
zg be necessary
Ik obstruct, interfere with
Zd allow
vz cause
fthg instinct
stum equals, results in
&k agree, agreement
fEt trade
f&k deal
pS learn
pf study
Xkvg smell (noun odor, or to have odor)
Xtvk smell (nose or, or to detect odor)
gEpS teach
spm value
bst school
Nin light, illuminate
kTp mother, give birth (to)
negs father, preside (over)
kTis parent, care for
Nouns and Adjectives
dZfk name
itl friend/friendly
w here
kax hand
Gal red
pfat person
bv money
sz ear
ps good
kin inner peace/economic status
dak thing
blk Sir/Mister/Honorific (no case ending when used as title)
ryZ enclosure (ship, bottle, container)
vrD area, integral [math] (zone, field)
C opportunity
VEd family
pik steadfast, strong, unbreakable
VaN extremely hard, black, nutritious grain food like wheat
VaNgw popular soft bread made from VaN
bt simple
^s middle
fn last
sEn alone
is happiness/happy
fren Ferengi (culture)
fEd Federation
rT Earth
Rihan Romulan
TliN Klingon
hjum Human
n&T common
Prepositions
uf Under
ti from
hOj in
xex for
isi to
for the length of
Postpositions
-gi belonging to/part of (forming a noun)
-gy belonging to/part of (forming an adjective)
-gal home of
-ple one who does/performs (some action)
-iG diminutive
-vt emphasizer
Adverbs (do not take case endings)
paag always
spi ever
gmeef again
kaaj only
Question words
ug who
am what
pod why
in when
pk where
a? how (by what means)
az how (in what manner)
Ng how much
kl which
Quantifiers (take case endings only when used as nouns)
puk None of
kyf All of/Every
Goz Many
Zrn Some of
gip Not all of
fis Few
kjy only
gelm more
enough
insufficient
Conjuntions
-wn and (suffix)
wen and
lala or (inclusive)
mala or (exclusive)
imp but
studM then (implication)
adMk if and only if
joN than
that/which
wan plus (addition)
Interjections
ki yes
kis on the contrary, yes
pax no
Misc
pwaT indefinate it/they
Section 4 --- Examples of Ferengi Sentences
(plus English phonetics)
Here are some sentences for you to ponder and take apart. If you want some
added, email them to me. If you make some of your own, you can email them
to me also and I'll add them to the list. The English phonetics (in single
quotes) is the closest I can get to how it should sound, written in a way
that an English speaker would understand it.
"Hello, my name is 'ofr'."
/bjavt, dZfkotu rs ofr/
['bja-v@t dZ@f'ko-tu rs 'of-r]
'byahvt, jf-koh-too ert oh-fer'
"Sir, do you want food?"
/blk, kmnaz wl^/
[bl@k k@m'naz w@'l^]
'bl'k, k'm-naz w'luh'
"Dhak has seen Omei's hand."
/Dak vav kax^ omeu/
[Dak vav ka'x^ o'me-ju]
'Thahk vahv kah-khuh oh-may-yoo'
"Fiddle is red."
/fIdl Galr/
['fId-l Ga'lr]
'Fiddle ghahl-er'
"No good deed ever goes unpunished."
/puk n^ psy dxnapub spi/
[puk n^ psy d@x'na-pub spi]
'pook nuh psue d'x-nah-poob spee'
"Once you have their money, you never give it back."
/myt bv^bu studM Ttxavtp spi bi gmeef/
[myt 'bB^-bu 'stud-Mn T@t'xav-t@p spi bi g@'meef/
'muet bvuh-boo stoodn th't-khahv-t'p spee bi g'mayf'
"His money is only yours when he can't get it back."
/bvo?u kur adMk ?Stap Tdka gmeef/
['bvo-?u ku'wr adM-k ?@'Stap T@d'ka g@'meef]
'bvoh-'u koo-er adn-k -'shtahp th'd-kah g'mayf'
"Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to."
/xDavtp gelm^ dki joN Ngo klfa/
[x@'Dav-t@p gel'm^ d@'ki joN N'go k@l'fa]
'kh'thahv-t'p gel-muh d'kee yohng ng-go k'l-fah'
"Never allow family to stand in the way of oppurtunity."
/Zdavtp spi VEd^ Ika C^/
[Z@'dav-t@p spi VE'd^ Ika C^/
'zh-dahv-t'p spee Beduh ikuh Duh'
"Always keep your ears open."
/ntgavt ndfyt paag sz^ku/
[n-t@'ga-v@t n-d@'fyt paag s@'z^-ku]
'n-t'gahv't n-d'fuet paag s'zuh-koo'
"Opportunity plus instinct equals profit."
/Co wan fthgo stuma bj^/
[Co wan f@t-h@'go stu'ma bj^]
'Doh wahn f't-h'goh stu-mah bjuh'
"A deal is a deal."
/f&k rt f&k piky/
[f&k rt f&k pi'ky]
'fak ert fak peek-ue'
Section 5 -- English words written Ferengi-style
This section is to give you a better understanding of how this phonemic
system works. If you want any more added, just ask me in email.
/DIs sEkS^n Iz tu gIv ju @ bEtr ^ndrst&ndIN ^v haw Dis fonimIk sIst@m
wrks. If yu w^nt @ny mOr &dEd, dZ^st &sk mi In imel/
"Have a nice day."
/h&v @ najs de/
"The Ferengi are a race that grasp the concept of capitalism with a passion."
/D@ frEngi ar @ res D&t gr&sp D@ kansEpt ^v k&pIt@lIzm wIT @ p&S@n./
Section 6 -- Misc. notes on the Ferengi language
The Ferengi language has an extensive technical, mathematical, and financial
vocabulary. The Ferengi have a high regard for academics, especially
economics. Knowlege is power, and the Ferengi know it. A Ferengi's knowlege
of calculus or chemistry could potentially prove profitable in the future,
so Ferengi children are strongly encouraged to do well in these subjects, as
well as have a firm grasp on the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. Future
versions of this text will contain some of that vocabulary, but a much more
complete dictionary would be included in a book.
The Ferengi writing system, unfortunately, can't be represented in this text
file. However, a few things can be said about it. One of the more common
writing systems is a linear, left-to-right cursive script. For each letter,
there are 5 forms: Initial, intermediate, final, isolated, and simplified.
The initial form is for the beginning of a word, the intermediate form goes
between two other letters, the final form goes at the end of a word, the
isolated form is neither preceded nor followed by another letter, and the
simplified form mostly resembles the isolated form, but it was originally
used for other Ferengi writing schemes and is used with computers.
If you examine the history of Roman alphabet (the one we use), you can see
that parts of it were borrowed from the Greek alphabet, which was taken from
the Pheonicians, who spoke a Semitic language. The Semites were the first
to develop a true alphabet (in contrast to a syllabary or pictorial
writing system). Their alphabet could be described as a syllabary where
each letter represents a specific consonant and ANY vowel. Their alphabet
evolved this way because in communication, consonants carried meaning, while
vowels only carried gramatical information. Each letter was originally a
picture of something which started with that letter and the letter was
named after that thing (ie. their /d/ is called /dalEt/, which means 'door',
and it was originally drawn to resemble a door). As the Semitic languages
evolved and divided, in some cases vowels came to convey more meaning. To
account for this, the Semites began to use consonants (glides usually) to
represent their corresponding vowels (/j/ was used for /i/, /w/ for /u/,
etc.). By the time the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet, the practice
was quite common and necessary, and the Greeks followed suit. The Greeks
needed vowels to be written, and there were sounds in the Phoenician
alphabet which didn't exist in Greek, so the Greeks used some of those extra
consonants to represent their vowels. Over these thousands of years of
evolution, the modern Roman alphabet does not resemble the first alphabets
at all, while the evolutionary origins are clear. Additionally, the names
of the letters (even for Semitic languages like Arabic) have changed and
simplified.
[If there are any errors in this, please tell me... I wrote it from memory.]
Ferengi writings go back as far as 20000 years in varying forms with what
appear to be 6 or 7 independantly developed alphabets (it appears that one
alphabet may have been a mixture of two ancestors), as well as over 100
different syllabaries and pictographic writing systems. Some of the
alphabets can be traced to syllabaries, while the rest are of uncertain
origin. The standard Ferengi script (/tixEpjo/) cannot be traced to a
particular syllabary, although it looks like it may have been modeled after
one. Like a few others, its history starts out as something resembling
an alphabet. The earliest writings that /tixEpjo/ can be traced to looked
like an alphabetic form of a syllabary, where every syllable was written as
a consonant with a vowel above it, and the language that first used it
appeared to have a strict CV syllable structure. A number of languages
used this writing system, and those languages that didn't have this strict
CV structure would write consonants without vowels above them, but there
was a consistent tendancy for the vowels to fall to the right of the
consonants, especially when there were vowel clusters. The earliest written
forms of /tixEk/ wrote the vowels above the consonants, except in cases of
vowel clusters where the second and subsequent vowels were written to the
right of the consonant. Over time, the language changed so that vowels
started to become less important to meaning in some places, so many writers
would omit writing the vowels in places where it was easy enough to
recognize the words without the vowels. With this omission of vowels, the
remaining important vowels fell to the right of the consonants, resulting
in spellings very much resembling those of modern Ferengi words (although
the letters were not yet written in a connected script), but with very
different pronounciations since the omitted vowels were still pronounced.
About 800 years ago, members of the Ferengi ruling class got a bright idea.
They thought that since the vowels were not written, that they weren't
important and started having schools teach the language with the omitted
vowels unpronounced. Over a period of about 100 years, they were largely
successful at implementing their rather misguided plan to 'improve' the
language, which instead resulted in a language that is hard to pronounce and
difficult for the non-native speaker to determine where to insert schwas
when absolutely necessary.
Now, the Ferengi government and language institution maintain consistency
between spelling and pronounciation (to a large extent). Due to continued
scientific usage, some letters which have recently gone into disuse are still
considered to be part of the alphabet and when children are taught the
alphabet, they are taught to pronounce those letters, even though they would
not otherwise use them in normal speech. In Modern Ferengi, the schwa is
very commonly used, but it has no lexical meaning (taking the position of
some of the omitted vowels when a vowel is absolutely necessary). As a
result, it is not written, and has to be learned.