NATO phonetic alphabet Totally Explained

Everything about The Nato Phonetic Alphabet totally explained

The NATO phonetic alphabet, more formally the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet, is the most widely used spelling alphabet. Though often called "phonetic alphabets", spelling alphabets have no connection to phonetic transcription systems like the International Phonetic Alphabet. Instead, the NATO alphabet assigns code words to the letters of the English alphabet acrophonically (Alfa for A, Bravo for B, etc.) so that critical combinations of letters (and numbers) can be pronounced and understood by those who transmit and receive voice messages by radio or telephone regardless of their native language, especially when the safety of navigation or persons is essential. The paramount reason is to ensure intelligibility of voice signals over radio links.

International

Adoption

It is used by many national and international organizations, including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). It is a subset of the much older International Code of Signals (INTERCO), which originally included visual signals by flags or flashing light, sound signals by whistle, siren, foghorn, or bell, as well as one, two, or three letter codes for many phrases. The same alphabetic code words are used by all agencies, but each agency chooses one of two different sets of numeric code words. NATO uses the regular English numeric words (Zero, One, with some alternative pronunciations), whereas the IMO uses compound numeric words (Nadazero, Unaone).

Common name

The alphabet's common name (NATO phonetic alphabet) arose because it appears in Allied Tactical Publication ATP-1, Volume II: Allied Maritime Signal and Maneuvering Book used by all allied navies in NATO, which adopted a modified form of the International Code of Signals. Because the latter allows messages to be spelled via flags or Morse code, it naturally called the code words used to spell out messages by voice its "phonetic alphabet". The name NATO phonetic alphabet became widespread because the signals used to facilitate the naval communications and tactics of the United States and NATO have become global. However, ATP-1 is marked NATO Confidential (or the lower NATO Restricted) so it isn't publicly available. Nevertheless, a NATO unclassified version of the document is provided to foreign, even hostile, militaries, even though they're not allowed to make it publicly available.

Language

Most of the words are recognizable by native English speakers because English must be used upon request for communication between an aircraft and a control tower whenever two nations are involved, regardless of their native languages. English isn't required domestically, thus if both parties to a radio conversation are from the same country, then another phonetic alphabet of that nation's choice may be used.
In most versions of the alphabet, the non-English spellings Alfa and Juliett are found. Alfa is spelled with an f as it's in most European languages. The English and French spelling alpha wouldn't be properly pronounced by speakers of some other languages whose native speakers may not know that ph should be pronounced as f. Juliett is spelled with a tt for native French speakers because they may treat a single final t as silent. In English versions of the alphabet, like that from ANSI, one or both may revert to their standard English spelling.

Alphabet and pronunciation

The pronunciation of the words in the alphabet as well as numbers may vary according to the language habits of the speakers. In order to eliminate wide variations in pronunciation, posters illustrating the pronunciation desired are available from the ICAO.

Letters

Letter	Code word	Pronunciation	IPA from ICAO
A	Alfa (ICAO, ITU, IMO, FAA) Alpha (ANSI)	AL FAH	ˈælfɑ
B	Bravo	BRAH VOH	ˈbrɑːˈvo (sic)
C	Charlie	CHAR LEE or SHAR LEE	ˈtʃɑːli (sic) or ˈʃɑːli (sic)
D	Delta	DELL TAH	ˈdeltɑ
E	Echo	ECK OH	ˈeko
F	Foxtrot	FOKS TROT	ˈfɔkstrɔt
G	Golf	GOLF	gʌlf (sic)
H	Hotel	HO TELL (ICAO) HOH TELL (ITU, IMO, FAA)	hoːˈtel
I	India	IN DEE AH	ˈindiˑɑ
J	Juliett (ICAO, ITU, IMO, FAA) Juliet (ANSI)	JEW LEE ETT	ˈdʒuːliˑˈet
K	Kilo	KEY LOH	ˈkiːlo
L	Lima	LEE MAH	ˈliːmɑ
M	Mike	MIKE	mɑik
N	November	NO VEM BER	noˈvembə (sic)
O	Oscar	OSS CAH	ˈɔskɑ
P	Papa	PAH PAH	pəˈpɑ
Q	Quebec	KEH BECK	keˈbek
R	Romeo	ROW ME OH	ˈroːmiˑo
S	Sierra	SEE AIR RAH (ICAO, ITU, IMO) SEE AIR AH (FAA)	siˈerɑ
T	Tango	TANG GO	ˈtængo (sic)
U	Uniform	YOU NEE FORM or OO NEE FORM	ˈjuːnifɔːm (sic) or ˈuːnifɔrm
V	Victor	VIK TAH	ˈviktɑ
W	Whiskey	WISS KEY	ˈwiski
X	X-ray or Xray	ECKS RAY (ICAO, ITU) ECKS RAY (IMO, FAA)	ˈeksˈrei
Y	Yankee	YANG KEY	ˈjænki (sic)
Z	Zulu	ZOO LOO	ˈzuːluː

Digits

Digit	Code word	Pronunciation	IPA from ICAO
0 (number)	Zero (FAA) Nadazero (ITU, IMO)	ZE RO (ICAO, FAA) NAH-DAH-ZAY-ROH (ITU, IMO)	—
1	One (FAA) Unaone (ITU, IMO)	WUN (ICAO, FAA) OO-NAH-WUN (ITU, IMO)	—
2	Two (FAA) Bissotwo (ITU, IMO)	TOO (ICAO, FAA) BEES-SOH-TOO (ITU, IMO)	—
3	Three (FAA) Terrathree (ITU, IMO)	TREE (ICAO, FAA) TAY-RAH-TREE (ITU, IMO)	—
4	Four (FAA) Kartefour (ITU, IMO)	FOW ER (ICAO, FAA) KAR-TAY-FOWER (ITU, IMO)	—
5	Five (FAA) Pantafive (ITU, IMO)	FIFE (ICAO, FAA) PAN-TAH-FIVE (ITU, IMO)	—
6	Six (FAA) Soxisix (ITU, IMO)	SIX (ICAO, FAA) SOK-SEE-SIX (ITU, IMO)	—
7	Seven (FAA) Setteseven (ITU, IMO)	SEV EN (ICAO, FAA) SAY-TAY-SEVEN (ITU, IMO)	—
8	Eight (FAA) Oktoeight (ITU, IMO)	AIT (ICAO, FAA) OK-TOH-AIT (ITU, IMO)	—
9	Nine (FAA) Novenine (ITU, IMO) (No 'r' in spellings)	NIN ER (ICAO, FAA) NO-VAY-NINER (ITU, IMO)	—

Pronunciation

The spelling and pronunciation given is that officially prescribed by the ICAO, ITU, IMO, and the FAA. The ICAO indicates unstressed numeric syllables in lower case (stressed in UPPER CASE), unlike its own alphabet, where stressed syllables are UNDERLINED UPPER CASE (unstressed in UPPER CASE). In the interests of uniformity, the IMO/FAA style of stressed syllables in BOLD will be used here (underlines might be confused with links).
Wherever the agencies (ICAO, ITU, IMO, FAA, ANSI) differ, each agency's preferred pronunciations or spellings are also given in the table. The ICAO, ITU, and IMO give an alternate pronunciation for a couple of letter-words. The FAA gives the alternate pronunciations in one publication as shown by the image on this page, but in other publications it does not. The FAA gives different spellings for their pronunciations depending on the publication consulted. These are from the FAA Flight Services manual (§ 14.1.5) and the ATC manual (§ 2-4-16). ANSI gives English spellings, but doesn't give pronunciations or numbers. The ICAO, NATO, and FAA use the common English number words (with stress), which are also the second component of the more complex ITU and IMO number words (no stress).
Only the ICAO prescribes any kind of IPA pronunciation (and then only for letters, not numbers). It is a broad transcription because many different pronunciations of each code word are allowed, depending on the language habits of the speakers. Thus only a generic 'e' is indicated, rather than its various shades; 'r' indicates an English r, rather than a trilled r; 'i' indicates either a long or short i. Several differences are apparent between the Latin alphabet pronunciation and the IPA pronunciation (indicated via sic): no 'r' is shown in the IPA forms of CHAR LEE, SHAR LEE, NOVEMBER, or YOU NEE FORM, but is shown in OO NEE FORM; the ŋ phoneme ('ng') in the IPA forms of TANG GO and YANG KEE is shown as an 'n'; the IPA form of GOLF implies it's pronounced 'gulf'; and the IPA form of BRAH VOH has both syllables stressed. These alternatives may indicate the wide variations in pronunciation that are acceptable. and was undoubtedly adopted shortly thereafter by the ITU, because it appears in the 1959 Radio Regulations as an established phonetic alphabet. Because the ITU governs all international radio communications, it was also adopted by all radio operators, whether military, civilian, or amateur (ARRL). It was finally adopted by the IMO in 1965. In 1947 the ITU adopted the compound number words (Nadazero Unaone, etc.), later adopted by the IMO in 1965.

Usage

The alphabet is used to spell out parts of a message containing letters and numbers to avoid confusion, because many letters sound similar, for instance "n" and "m" or "b" and "d". For instance the message "proceed to map grid DH98" could be transmitted as "proceed to map grid Delta-Hotel-Niner-Ait". Using "Delta" instead of "D" avoids confusion between "BH98" and "DH98".
   In addition to the traditional military usage, civilian industry uses the alphabet to combat similar problems in the transmission of messages over telephone systems. For example, it's often used in the retail industry where customer or site details are spoken over the telephone (in order to authorize a credit agreement or confirming stock codes), although ad hoc coding is often used in that instance. It has found heavy usage in the information technology industry to accurately and quickly communicate serial/reference codes (which can be and are frequently extremely long) or other specialised information by voice.
   Several letter codes and abbreviations using the phonetic alphabet have become well-known, such as Bravo Zulu (letter code BZ) for "well done", Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint C) in Berlin, and Zulu Time for Greenwich Mean Time or Coordinated Universal Time. During the Vietnam War, Viet Cong guerrillas and the group itself were referred to as VC, or Victor Charlie; the name "Charlie" has thus become synonymous with this force.
   The phonetic alphabet is frequently used in popular culture to evoke a military environment or situation. For example, in the movie Meet the Parents, Robert de Niro plays a former CIA operative who repeatedly utters phrases using the phonetic alphabet. Other notable examples of usage include the British television series Juliet Bravo which wasn't the character's name but her callsign, The Bill and Robert Ludlum's novel The Bourne Identity which repeatedly uses the system - the phrase Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain is repeated, always italicized, to symbolize the messages relayed to the main character during the Vietnam War.
   Slang uses include euphemisms for swear words, such as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ("What the fuck?"), Charlie Foxtrot (American military slang referring to any sort of mass confusion as a "cluster fuck" or "completely fucked"), Foxtrot Uniform ("Fuck up"), and Foxtrot Oscar ("Fuck off").

Variants

Aviation

"Delta" is replaced by "Dixie" or "David" at airports that have a majority of Delta Air Lines flights, such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in order to avoid confusion because "Delta" is also Delta's callsign.
"Foxtrot" is commonly abbreviated to "Fox" at North American airports and some European ones.

Amateur radio

Amateur radio and citizens' band radio operators will occasionally use "Italy" instead of "India", "Kilowatt" instead of simply "Kilo", "Radio" instead of "Romeo", "Yokohama" instead of "Yankee" and "Zanzibar" instead of "Zulu".

Other

Many unofficial phonetic alphabets are in use that are not based on a standard, but are based on words the transmitter can easily remember. Often, such ad-hoc phonetic alphabets are first name alphabets based on (mostly) men's names, such as Alan Bobby Charlie David Edward Frederick George Howard Isaac James Kevin Larry Michael Nicholas Oscar Peter Quincy Robert Stephen Trevor Ulysses Vincent William Xavier Yaakov Zebedee, or on a mixture of names and other easily recognizable (and locally understandable) proper nouns, such as U.S. states, local cities and towns, etc. One documented example of this is the LAPD phonetic alphabet.

Additions in other languages

Certain languages' standard alphabets have letters, or letters with diacritics for example umlauts, that don't exist in the English alphabet. Each of their countries has had its own radiotelephonic alphabet containing words for these letters decades before the ICAO had their alphabet.

German

To the above NATO series has been added Ärger ("anger") for <Ä>, Öse ("grommet") for <Ö>, and Übel ("evil") for <Ü>. These additions are not in the ICAO alphabet and are used only in the German-speaking world. Three other special words commonly used in German radiotelephonic alphabets were not added: one for , one for , and one for <ß>, which is instead encoded as .
Danish
Denmark is also a member of NATO, and according to Per K. Nielsen, its military has added Ægir for <Æ>, Ødis for <Ø>, and Åse for <Å>, which in its alphabet are separate letters that follow .
Norwegian
The Norwegian phonetic alphabet uses Ærlig ("honest") for <Æ>, Østen ("the East") for <Ø>, and Åse () for <Å>.
Spanish
In Spain and Latin America, Ñandu ("rhea") is used for <Ñ>.
Recordings
This recording isn't of the full alphabet.

Further Information
Get more info on 'Nato Phonetic Alphabet'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://nato_phonetic_alphabet.totallyexplained.com">NATO phonetic alphabet Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.