A spelling alphabet ( also called by various other names) is a set of words used to represent the

letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

of an

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

oral communication Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...

, especially over a

two-way radio A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive radio waves (a transceiver), unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. It is an audio (sound) transceiver, a transmitter and receiver in one unit, used for bidirecti ...

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

. The words chosen to represent the letters sound sufficiently different from each other to clearly differentiate them. This avoids any confusion that could easily otherwise result from the names of letters that sound similar, except for some small difference easily missed or easily degraded by the imperfect sound quality of the apparatus. For example, in the Latin alphabet, the letters B, P, and D ("bee", "pee" and "dee") sound similar and could easily be confused, but the words "bravo", "papa" and "delta" sound completely different, making confusion unlikely. Any suitable words can be used in the moment, making this form of communication easy even for people not trained on any particular standardized spelling alphabet. For example, it is common to hear a nonce form like "A as in 'apple', D as in 'dog', P as in 'paper'" over the telephone in

customer support Customer support is a range of services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Reg ...

contexts. However, to gain the advantages of

standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

in contexts involving trained persons, a standard version can be convened by an organization. Many (loosely or strictly) standardized spelling alphabets exist, mostly owing to historical siloization, where each organization simply created its own. International air travel created a need for a worldwide standard. Today the most widely known spelling alphabet is the

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...

International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet, technically a ''radiotelephonic spellin ...

, also known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, which is used for Roman letters. Spelling alphabets also exist for Greek and for Russian.

Terminology

Spelling alphabets are called by various names, according to context. These synonyms include spelling alphabet, word-spelling alphabet, voice procedure alphabet, radio alphabet, radiotelephony alphabet, telephone alphabet, and telephony alphabet. A spelling alphabet is also often called a phonetic alphabet, especially by

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

enthusiasts, recreational sailors in the US and Australia, and NATO military organizations, despite this usage of the term producing a

naming collision A naming collision is a circumstance where two or more identifiers in a given namespace or a given scope cannot be unambiguously resolved, and such unambiguous resolution is a requirement of the underlying system. Example: XML element names In ...

with the usage of the same phrase in

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

to mean a notation used for

phonetic transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...

phonetic spelling A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographi ...

, such as the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

, which is used to indicate the sounds of human speech.

History

The names of the letters of the

English alphabet The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, '' alpha'' and '' beta''. ...

are "a", "bee", "cee", "dee", "e", etc. These can be difficult to discriminate, particularly over a limited-bandwidth and noisy communications channel, hence the use in aviation and by armed services of unambiguous substitute names for use in electrical voice communication such as telephone and radio. A large number of spelling alphabets have been developed over the past century, with the first ones being used to overcome problems with the early wired telephone networks, and the later ones being focused on wireless two-way radio (radiotelephony) links. Often, each communications company and each branch of each country's military developed its own spelling alphabet, with the result that one 1959 research effort documented a full 203 different spelling alphabets, comprising 1600 different words, leading the author of the report to ask: Each word in the spelling alphabet typically replaces the name of the letter with which it starts (

acrophony Acrophony (; Greek: ἄκρος ''akros'' uppermost + φωνή ''phone'' sound) is the naming of letters of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter's name begins with the letter itself. For example, Greek letter names are acrophonic: the name ...

). It is used to spell out words when speaking to someone not able to see the speaker, or when the audio channel is not clear. The lack of high frequencies on standard

s makes it hard to distinguish an 'F' from an 'S' for example. Also, the lack of visual cues during oral communication can cause confusion. For example, lips are closed at the start of saying the letter "B" but open at the beginning of the letter "D" making these otherwise similar-sounding letters more easily discriminated when looking at the speaker. Without these visual cues, such as during announcements of airline gate numbers "B1" and "D1" at an airport, "B" may be confused with "D" by the listener. Spelling out one's name, a password or a

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...

over the telephone are other scenarios where a spelling alphabet is useful.

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

signaller A signaller, signalman, colloquially referred to as a radioman or signaleer in the armed forces is a specialist soldier, sailor or airman responsible for military communications. Signallers, a.k.a. Combat Signallers or signalmen or women, are ...

s began using a partial spelling alphabet in the late 19th century. Recorded in the 1898 "Signalling Instruction" issued by the War Office and followed by the 1904 Signalling Regulations this system differentiated only the letters most frequently misunderstood: Ack (originally "Ak") Beer (or Bar) C D E F G H I J K L eMma N O Pip Q R eSses Toc U Vic W X Y Z. This alphabet was the origin of phrases such as "ack-ack" (A.A. for

anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

), "pip-emma" for pm and

Toc H Toc H (also TH) is an international Christian movement. The name is an abbreviation for Talbot House, "Toc" signifying the letter T in the signals spelling alphabet used by the British Army in World War I. A soldiers' rest and recreation centre ...

for an ex-servicemen's association. It was developed on the Western Front of the First World War. The RAF developed their " telephony spelling alphabet", which was adopted by all three services and civil aviation in the UK from 1921. It was later formally codified to provide a word for all 26 letters (see comparative tabulation of Western military alphabets). For civilian users, in particular in the field of finance, alternative alphabets arose. Common personal names were a popular choice, and the First Name Alphabet came into common use.

Voice procedure

Spelling alphabets are especially useful when speaking in a noisy environment when clarity and promptness of communication is essential, for example during

communication between an aircraft pilot and

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

, or in military operations. Whereas the names of many letters sound alike, the set of replacement words can be selected to be as distinct from each other as possible, to minimise the likelihood of ambiguity or mistaking one letter for another. For example, if a burst of

static Static may refer to: Places *Static Nunatak, a nunatak in Antarctica United States * Static, Kentucky and Tennessee *Static Peak, a mountain in Wyoming **Static Peak Divide, a mountain pass near the peak Science and technology Physics *Static el ...

cuts off the start of an

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

utterance of the letter ''J'', it may be mistaken for ''A'' or ''K''. In the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet known as the ICAO (or NATO) phonetic alphabet, the sequence ''J–A–K'' would be pronounced ''Juliett–Alfa–Kilo''. Some voice procedure standards require

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

s to be spelled out digit by digit, so some spelling alphabets replace confusable digit names with more distinct alternatives; for example, the NATO alphabet has “niner” for 9 to distinguish it better from 5 (pronounced as “fife”) and the German word “nein”.

Flaghoist spelling alphabets

Although no radio or traditional telephone communications are involved in communicating flag signals among ships, the instructions for which flags to hoist are relayed by voice on each ship displaying flags, and whether this is done by shouting between decks, sound tubes, or

sound-powered telephone A sound-powered telephone is a communication device that allows users to talk to each other with the use of a handset, similar to a conventional telephone, but without the use of external power. This technology has been used since at least 1944 ...

s, some of the same distortions that make a spelling alphabet for radiotelephony also make a spelling alphabet desirable for directing seamen in which flags to hoist. The first documented use of this were two different alphabets used by U.S. Navy circa 1908. By 1942, the U.S. Army's radiotelephony spelling alphabet was associated with the

International Code of Signals The International Code of Signals (ICS) is an international system of signals and codes for use by vessels to communicate important messages regarding safety of navigation and related matters. Signals can be sent by flaghoist, signal lamp ("bl ...

(ICS) flags.

Telephone spelling alphabets

While spelling alphabets today are mostly used over two-way radio voice circuits (radiotelephony), early on in telecommunications there were also telephone-specific spelling alphabets, which were developed to deal with the noisy conditions on long-distance circuits. Their development was loosely intertwined with radiotelephony spelling alphabets, but were developed by different organizations; for example, AT&T developed a spelling alphabet for its long-distance operators, another for its international operators; Western Union developed one for the public to use when dictating telegrams over the telephone; and ITU-T developed a spelling alphabet for telephone networks, while ITU-R was involved in the development of radiotelephony spelling alphabets. Even though both of these groups were part of the same ITU, and thus part of the UN, their alphabets often differed from each other. Uniquely, the 1908 Tasmanian telegraph operator's code was designed to be memorized as follows:

Radiotelephony spelling alphabets

During WWI

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

battle lines were relatively static and forces were commonly linked by wired telephones. Signals could be weak on long wire runs and

field telephone Field telephones are telephones used for military communications. They can draw power from their own battery, from a telephone exchange (via a central battery known as CB), or from an external power source. Some need no battery, being sound-powere ...

systems often used a single wire with earth return, which made them subject to inadvertent and deliberate interference. Spelling alphabets were introduced for wire telephony as well as on the newer radio voice equipment. American Army Field Codes In the American Expeditionary Forces During The First World War
William Friedman, U.S. War Department, June 1942

Between WWI and WWII

Commercial and international telephone and radiotelephone spelling alphabets.

During WWII

The later

NATO phonetic alphabet The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet, technically a ''radiotelephonic spellin ...

evolved from the procedures of several different Allied nations during World War II, including: * The United States Navy (multiple versions in 1913, 1927, 1938, and WWII) * The United States Army (multiple versions in 1916, 1939, 1944, and 1961) * The United States Army Air Force * Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet (1941–1956) * The British Royal Air Force phonetic alphabet (1921 onwards)

Post-WWII

For the 1938 and 1947 alphabets, each transmission of figures is preceded and followed by the words "as a number" spoken twice. The ITU adopted the

International Maritime Organization The International Maritime Organization (IMO, French: ''Organisation maritime internationale'') is a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for regulating shipping. The IMO was established following agreement at a UN conference ...

's phonetic spelling alphabet in 1959, and in 1969 specified that it be "for application in the maritime mobile service only". During the late 1940s and early 1950s, there were two international aviation radio spelling alphabets, the "Able Baker" was used by most Western countries, while the "Ana Brazil" alphabet was used by South American and Caribbean regions. Pronunciation was not defined prior to 1959. From 1959 to present, the underlined syllable of each code word for the letters should be stressed, and from 1969 to present, each syllable of the code words for the digits should be equally stressed, with the exceptions of the unstressed second syllables of fower, seven, niner, hundred.

ICAO Radiotelephone Spelling Alphabet

After WWII, the major work in producing a better spelling alphabet was conducted by the ICAO, which was subsequently adopted in modified form by the ITU and IMO. Its development is related to these various international conventions on radio, including: * Universal Electrical Communications Union, Washington, D.C., December 1920 * International Radiotelegraph Convention, Washington, 1927 (which created the CCIR) * General Radiocommunication and Additional Regulations (Madrid, 1932) * Instructions for the International Telephone Service, 1932 (ITU-T E.141; withdrawn in 1993) * The ARRL and 1928 Western Union alphabets likely originated earlier. * General Radiocommunication Regulations and Additional Radiocommunication Regulations (Cairo, 1938) * Radio Regulations and Additional Radio Regulations (Atlantic City, 1947), where "it was decided that the International Civil Aviation Organization and other international aeronautical organizations would assume the responsibility for procedures and regulations related to aeronautical communication. However, ITU would continue to maintain general procedures regarding distress signals." * 1959 Administrative Radio Conference (Geneva, 1959) * Final Acts of WARC-79 (Geneva, 1979). Here the alphabet was formally named "Phonetic Alphabet and Figure Code". * International Code of Signals for Visual, Sound, and Radio Communications, United States Edition, 1969 (Revised 2003) * NATO phonetic alphabet history * International Telecommunication Union, Radio The ICAO Radiotelephony Alphabet is defined by the

International Civil Aviation Organization The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sc ...

for international aircraft communications.

Law enforcement

Defined by the

Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International was founded in 1935. It is the world’s oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals and supports the largest U.S. membership base of an ...

. The APCO first suggested that its Procedure and Signals Committee work out a system for a "standard set of words representing the alphabet should be used by all stations" in its April 1940 newsletter. Note: The old APCO alphabet has wide usage among Public Safety agencies nationwide, even though APCO itself deprecated the alphabet in 1974, replacing it with the ICAO spelling alphabet. See https://www.apcointl.org and

APCO radiotelephony spelling alphabet The APCO phonetic alphabet, a.k.a. LAPD radio alphabet, is the term for an old competing spelling alphabet to the ICAO radiotelephony alphabet, defined by the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International from 1941 to 1974, ...

Amateur radio

The FCC regulations for Amateur radio state that "Use of a phonetic alphabet as an aid for correct station identification is encouraged" (47 C.F.R. § 97.119(b)(2)), but does not state which set of words should be used. Officially the same as used by ICAO, but there are significant variations commonly used by stations participating in HF contests and DX (especially in international HF communications). The official ARRL alphabet changed over the years, sometimes to reflect the current norms, and sometimes by the force of law. In rules made effective beginning April 1, 1946, the FCC forbade using the names of cities, states, or countries in spelling alphabets.

Additions in other languages

Certain languages' standard alphabets have letters, or letters with diacritics (e.g., umlauts,

rings Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...

s), that do not exist in the English alphabet. If these letters have two-letter

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

substitutes, the ICAO/ITU code words for the two letters are used.

Czech

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

" ů", historically ''uo'', is ''Uniform-Oscar'' (uo).

Danish and Norwegian

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

and

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

the letters " æ", " ø" and " å" have their own code words. In Danish ''Ægir'', ''Ødis'' and ''Åse'' represent the three letters, while in Norwegian the three code words are ''Ægir'', ''Ørnulf'' and ''Ågot'' for civilians and ''Ærlig'', ''Østen'' and ''Åse'' for military personnel.

Estonian

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

has four special letters, ''õ'', ''ä'', ''ö'' and ''ü''. ''Õnne'' represents ''õ'', ''Ärni'' for ''ä'', ''Ööbik'' for ''ö'' and ''Ülle'' for ''ü''.

Finnish

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

there are special code words for the letters ''å'', ''ä'' and ''ö''. ''Åke'' is used to represent ''å'', ''Äiti'' is used for ''ä'' and ''Öljy'' for ''ö''. These code words are used only in national operations, the last remnants of the Finnish radio alphabet.

German

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

, ''Alfa-Echo'' (ae) may be used for " ä", ''Oscar-Echo'' (oe) for " ö", ''Sierra-Sierra'' (ss) for " ß", and ''Uniform-Echo'' (ue) for " ü".

Greek

The

Greek spelling alphabet __NOTOC__ The Greek spelling alphabet is a spelling alphabet (or "phonetic alphabet") for Greek, i.e. an accepted set of easily differentiated names given to the letters of the alphabet for the purpose of spelling out words. It is used mostly on r ...

is a spelling alphabet for the Greek language, i.e. a set of names used in lieu of alphabet letters for the purpose of spelling out words. It is used by the Greek armed and emergency services.

Malay

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

(including

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

) represents the letter "L" with "London", since the word ''lima'' means "five" in this language.

Russian

The

Russian spelling alphabet The Russian spelling alphabet is a spelling alphabet (or "phonetic alphabet") for Russian, ''i.e.'' a set of names given to the alphabet letters for the purpose of unambiguous verbal spelling. It is used primarily by the Russian army, navy and th ...

is a spelling alphabet for the Russian version of the

Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

Spanish

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

the word ''ñoño'' (, 'dull') is used for ñ.

Swedish

''Åke'' is used for " å" ''Ärlig'' for " ä" and ''Östen'' for " ö" in the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

spelling alphabet, though the two-letter substitutes ''aa'', ''ae'' and ''oe'' respectively may be used in absence of the specific letters.

Table of spelling alphabets by language

Other alphabets

The

PGP word list The PGP Word List ("Pretty Good Privacy word list", also called a biometric word list for reasons explained below) is a list of words for conveying data bytes in a clear unambiguous way via a voice channel. They are analogous in purpose to the NATO ...

, the Bubble Babble wordlist used by

ssh-keygen ssh-keygen is a standard component of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol suite found on Unix, Unix-like and Microsoft Windows computer systems used to establish secure shell sessions between remote computers over insecure networks, through the use o ...

, and the

S/KEY S/KEY is a one-time password system developed for authentication to Unix-like operating systems, especially from dumb terminals or untrusted public computers on which one does not want to type a long-term password. A user's real password is combined ...

dictionary, are spelling alphabets for

public key Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic alg ...

fingerprints (or other binary data) – a set of names given to data bytes for the purpose of spelling out binary data in a clear and unambiguous way via a voice channel. Many unofficial spelling alphabets are in use that are not based on a standard, but are based on words the transmitter can remember easily, including

first name First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

s, states, or cities. The

LAPD phonetic alphabet The APCO phonetic alphabet, a.k.a. LAPD radio alphabet, is the term for an old competing spelling alphabet to the ICAO radiotelephony alphabet, defined by the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International from 1941 to 1974, ...

has many first names. The German spelling alphabet ("Deutsches Funkalphabet" (literally "German Radio Alphabet")) also uses first names. Also, during the Vietnam war, soldiers used 'Cain' instead of 'Charlie' because 'Charlie' meant Viet Cong (Charlie being short for Victor Charlie, the International alphabet spelling of the initials VC).

Explanatory notes

References

{{Reflist, 35em

External links

Phonetic/spelling Alphabets for various languages
from Brian Kelk's website
Website converting text to telephone alphabet
(non-standard English, NATO, 14 other languages).

* ttp://www.radioalphabet.com/ Learn the NATO Radio Alphabet (and others) with flash cards game.
Spelling alphabets from around the world including sound.