Different approaches and methods for the
romanization of Arabic exist. They vary in the way that they address the inherent problems of rendering written and
spoken Arabic in the
Latin script. Examples of such problems are the symbols for Arabic
phonemes that do not exist in
English or other
European languages; the means of representing the
Arabic definite article, which is always spelled the same way in written Arabic but has numerous pronunciations in the spoken language depending on context; and the representation of short vowels (usually
i u or
e o, accounting for variations such as
Muslim/Moslem or
Mohammed/Muhammad/Mohamed).