and ⟨ei⟩ ⟨oi⟩ ⟨yi⟩. (As the ancient pronunciation of ⟨η⟩ was , it is often transliterated as an ⟨e⟩ with a macron, even for modern texts.) On the other hand, ⟨ευ⟩ is sometimes pronounced and sometimes , depending on the following sound. A transcription distinguishes them, but this is no requirement for a transliteration. The initial letter 'h' reflecting the historical rough breathing in words such as Ellēnikē should logically be omitted in transcription from Koine Greek on, and from transliteration from 1982 on, but it is nonetheless frequently encountered. Challenges A simple example of difficulties in transliteration is the Arabic letter qāf. It is pronounced, in literary Arabic, approximately like English [k], except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula, but the pronunciation varies between different dialects of Arabic. The letter is sometimes transliterated into "g", sometimes into "q" and rarely even into "k" in English. Another example is the Russian letter "Х" (kha). It is pronounced as the voiceless velar fricative , like the Scottish pronunciation of in "loch". This sound is not present in most forms of English and is often transliterated as "kh" as in Nikita Khrushchev. Many languages have phonemic sounds, such as click consonants, which are quite unlike any phoneme in the language into which they are being transliterated. Some languages and scripts present particular difficulties to transcribers. These are discussed on separate pages. Ancient Near East Transliterating cuneiform languages Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian (see also Egyptian hieroglyphs) Hieroglyphic Luwian Armenian language Avestan Brahmic family Devanagari: see Devanagari transliteration Pali Tocharian Malayalam: see Romanization of Malayalam Chinese language Transcription into Chinese characters Romanization of Chinese Cyrillization of Chinese Click languages of Africa Khoisan languages Bantu languages English language Hebraization of English Greek language Romanization of Greek Greek alphabet Linear B Greeklish Japanese language Romanization of Japanese Cyrillization of Japanese Khmer language Romanization of Khmer Korean language Romanization of Korean Persian language Persian alphabet Cyrillic alphabet Romanization of Persian Persian chat alphabet Semitic languages Ugaritic alphabet Hebrew alphabet Romanization of Hebrew Arabic alphabet Romanization of Arabic Arabic chat alphabet Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabets Romanization of Belarusian Romanization of Bulgarian Romanization of Russian Romanization of Macedonian Romanization of Serbian Romanization of Ukrainian Volapuk encoding Thai language Romanization of Thai Urdu Language Romanization of Urdu Adopted Buckwalter transliteration Devanagari transliteration Hans Wehr transliteration International Alphabet