Since the military is very interested in communication, and because they often work under auditorially challenging conditions (such as, say, during battle), spelling alphabets have mostly come from the military. One of the early English phonetic alphabets (from 1913) used these words: Spelling alphabets evolved independently in different branches of the military and in different countries. I'm Italian and maybe an interesting detail to expand on what Anonymous said is that there is no Italian verb equivalent to English "spell", so we say "fare lo spelling", using and English loanword, mainly to talk about foreign words.

Obviously, some kids learn on their own anyway.).

One of the early English phonetic alphabets (from 1913) used these words:

Thank goodness they are used to hearing the spelling alphabet, which is based, as someone mentioned above, on Italian cities. Click here to read more articles from Word Count. The idea was further developed with the spread of radio technology. Some people might remember the TV series Adam-12, where the "Adam" in the name derives from a spelling alphabet used by police forces. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) created code words that it connected to the letters of the English alphabet.

I chuckled to myself as I did exactly what Mr. Pope described in his last paragraph. Armenian Alphabet . For similar sounds, e.g. It must also use words that are phonetically distinct from one another. The are: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu, © Copyright 2007 - 2018 AlphaBravoCharlie.info a project of, See Air Ah (FAA) See Air Rah (ICAO, IMO, ITU), ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization, IMO - International Maritime Organization, ITU - International Telecommunication Union. Signaling individual letters had of course long been established in the navy, and so spelling alphabets evolved to have a distinct word for each letter. Benghali Alphabet . Superb timing, I enjoyed the article and the attention to it. The purpose of the Alpha Bravo Charlie code was to allow individuals who were communicating by radio or telephone to understand each other even if the means of communication was not high quality.

Thanks for the comment on my comment, "Italian Anonymous". Each word ("code word") stands for its initial lette r (alphabetical "symbol"). Click here to login. The soi-disant NATO Alphabet is invaluable when talking to airlines reservations staff about itineraries using your confirmation number, an alphanumeric string, especially when using a cellphone for communication. The Nato Phonetic Alphabet, also sometimes referred to as Alpha Bravo Charlie is actually officially called the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet. Zulu time (from the Z in zone) is jargon for GMT.

Timely for sure in this half deaf multiculturally accented and regionally dialected country of ours struggling to pronounce French, German, British Engish and American English, English languaged words of ours….whew.. How is that for a bad American English? This was particularly noticeable to me as I was learning the alphabet, because exceptions — Golf, Hotel, November — were harder to learn and had an odd effect on the rhythm of the spelling. Burmese Alphabet . The NATO phonetic alphabet is a Spelling Alphabet, a set of words used instead of letters in oral communication (i.e. Along similar lines, Wilco is spelling-alphabet shorthand for the W in will comply. (As those of us of a certain age can remember, pre-digital radio was notoriously subject to static and interference.) In addition to the NATO phonetics I use exaggerated number pronunciations justly as PFHOWAH for 4, THAREEE for 3, NIGHYAN for 9, FihYhav for 5, TeeUU for 2, FAHEV for 5 and ZEEEROH for you guest it.