The NATO phonetic alphabet reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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NATO phonetic alphabet

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Letter Phonetic Letter Phonetic Letter Phonetic
A Alpha M Mike Y Yankee
B Bravo N November Z Zulu
C Charlie O Oscar 0 Zero
D Delta P Papa 1 One
E Echo Q Quebec 2 Two
F Foxtrot R Romeo 3 Tree
G Golf S Sierra 4 Fower
H Hotel T Tango 5 Fife
I India U Uniform 6 Six
J Juliet V Victor 7 Seven
K Kilo W Whiskey 8 Eight
L Lima X X-Ray 9 Niner

The NATO phonetic alphabet was developed in the 1950s by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to be intelligible (and pronounceable) to all pilots and operators of civil aircraft.

Table of contents
1 History and use
2 Variants
3 Older phonetic alphabets
4 See also

History and use

The NATO alphabet replaced other phonetic alphabets, for example the US military Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet ("able baker") and several versions of RAF phonetic alphabets. It is sometimes inappropriately referred to as International Phonetic Alphabet, which is actually the official name of an alphabet used in linguistics created in the late nineteeth century.

It was adopted with minor modification by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The NATO phonetic alphabet is now widely used in business and telecommunications in Europe and North America. It has been adopted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), after which it is named by many radio operators. Although it consists of some English words, among others, its letter codewords can easily be recognised by speakers of languages other than English.

The alphabet is used to spell out parts of a message or call sign that are critical or otherwise hard to recognize during voice communication. For instance the message "proceed to map grid DH98" could be transmitted as "proceed to map grid Delta-Hotel-Niner-Eight" and a C-130 Hercules plane directly ahead might be described as a "Charlie One Thirty in your twelve o'clock".

The spelling of some of these words varies in different published versions of the alphabet. In particular Alpha may be written as Alfa and Juliet as Juliett. Since the alphabet is intended for oral use, this is not usually an issue. The pronunciation is intended to be identical in each case. Note that the letter Lima is pronounced "leema," not "laima."

Several letter codes and abbreviations using the phonetic alphabet have become well-known, such as Bravo Zulu (letter code BZ) for "well done", Sierra Hotel (SH from "shit hot") for "extremely capable" and Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint C). Sometimes they are used as euphemism, e.g. Charlie-Foxtrot for "cluster fuck" (a confused situation or "jam"), Tango-Uniform for "tits-up", used to express a dire situation, or Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot as a euphemism for "WTF".

From Federal Standard 1037C and from the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Variants

At some airports, the use of Delta for the letter D is avoided because it is also the callsign for Delta Air Lines. "Dixie" seems to be the most common substitute.

Older phonetic alphabets

In addition to the RAF and US Army/Navy alphabets referred to above, numerous other phonetic alphabets have been used in the past.

See also