As a nerd, my interests vary wildly from time to time. Recently, I returned to creating a number system that I have now perfected.

This system is built on the natural choice of the human hand, with symbols based on “chisanbop”, AKA “finger math”.

• A closed fist is zero, called “o”.
• A single index finger is a one, called “un” (rhymes with “boon”).
• Two fingers is “du” (rhymes with “goo”).
• Three is “ti” (sounds like “tea”).
• Four is “ko” (rhymes with “go”).
• The horizontal thumb serves as five, called “fa” (rhymes with “ha”).
• The later digits are created by adding the thumb to the lower digits.

Then ten is represented with “un” on one hand followed by “o” with the other, together being “uni-o”. By using the other thumb to represent 50 (fani), you can count up to 99 on your fingers and easily show a double-digit number to someone else silently.

Because the way the system works is bi-quinary, I chose “2-5” as the basis of the name for the system itself: Dufanary (DU-fahn-airy).

Higher numbers follow the same pattern:

• 20 = duni-o
• 30 = tini-o
• 32 = tini-du
• 45 = koni-fa
• 57 = fani-dufa
• 61 = unfani-un
• 74 = dufani-ko
• 88 = tifani-tifa
• 93 = kofani-ti
• 99 = kofani-kofa

From there, we go to 100, which is “un cent-o”. Then 101 is “un cent and un” (or, informally, “un-o-un”). So, “three hundred and twenty-four” becomes “ti cent and duni-ko”.

• 1000 = un mil-o
• 1200 = un mil-o du cent-o OR uni-du cent-o (twelve hundred)
• 10,000 = uni-o mil-o
• 100,000 = un cent-o mil-o
• million = million-o
• billion = dulion-o
• trillion = tilion-o
• quadrillion = kolion-o