(swt' for sūd 'profit' and swl for sōr 'salty'). However, short /u/ is also typically expressed like long /uː/ (e.g. swd for suy 'hunger'), whereas short /i/ and the assumed /e/ and /o/ vary between being expressed like their long counterparts or remaining unexpressed: p(y)t for pid 'father', sl(y)šk for srešk 'tear', nhwm for nohom 'ninth'. Due to elision of /w/, written yw can also correspond to /eː/: nywk' 'good'. Gemination of consonants was not expressed, e.g. waččag, sp. wck' 'child'). In Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi, a -y that was not pronounced appears word-finally, e.g. šhpwhry for Šahpuhr. Its origin and function are disputed. In Book Pahlavi, it developed into a peculiar convention, the so-called 'otiose' stroke, which resembles w/n/r and is added to demarcate the end of the word after those letters that never connect to the left: mān' 'house'. Like many abjads, Pahlavi ʾ can express simply the fact that a word begins in a vowel, e.g. ʾp̄ʾyt' for abāyēd 'it is necessary' (though two alephs usually aren't written in a row to express an initial long vowel). Manichaean In contrast to the historical and ideographic features of Pahlavi, Manichaean spelling is relatively straightforward. Like Pahlavi, the Manichaean script designates vowel-initial words with ʾ, but a further spelling convention in it is that it is the letter ՙ, rather than ʾ, that is written before initial front vowels, e.g. ՙym for im 'this' (in contrast to Pahlavi ʾm (or LZNE). Vowels are marked by matres lectionis in the Manichaean script in the usual way, and long vowels are more likely to be marked. In spite of the availability of signs for each sound, Manichaean spelling did not always make perfectly phonetic use of them. In particular, not only in Pahlavi but even in Manichaean, the letter p was often used to express /f/, and /z/ after vowels was written etymologically as c: thus, frāz 'forth' was spelt prʾc, just as in Pahlavi. If the voiced fricatives really occurred as allopohones of /b/, /g/, /d/ in Middle Persian, the special Manichaean signs for fricatives β, γ and δ usually were not used to express this either. Conversely, the Semitic letters for the consonants q, ṭ and h (transliterated ẖ in Manichaean) were retained and used, occasionally, even though they only expressed the same Middle Persian sounds as k and t, and ḥ (transliterated h in Manichaean). The Manichaean script