Another factor is the lack of the h sound in the Russian language; there is no letter to represent this sound in the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet. Foreign words (such as Jewish names) containing the h sound were spelled using either the g sound or gutteral kh sound instead. Thus names like Hirsh and Hinda became Girsh and Ginda or Chersh and Chinda. In some Lithuanian and Ukrainian regions, the initial h sound tended to be dropped entirely, so Hirsh became Irsh, and Hinda might appear as Inda.