by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. Transliteration of Manichaean script As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ. Original Aramaic h, on the other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ. For original ṭ, the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/, /f/, [β], /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x, f, β, γ and δ. Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ. Transcription Since, like most abjads, even the Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and a currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: long vowels are marked with a macron: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū for /aː/, /eː/, /iː/, /oː/, /uː/. The semivowels are marked as follows: w for /w/ and y for /j/. The palatal obstruents are marked with carons as follows: š for /ʃ/, č for /t͡ʃ/, ǰ for /d͡ʒ/ and ž for /ʒ/. The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is marked as x, its labialised counterpart /xw/ is xw, and the (phonemic) voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ is γ. Spelling A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/, respectively. In addition, both could use the letter p to express /f/, and ṣ to express z after a vowel. Pahlavi Arameograms The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA. A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include