Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here it happens all the
Speaker 1: time when we watch movies, especially war movies. Crackle comes
Speaker 1: over someone's radio and a voice cuts through the static.
Speaker 1: Alpha Bravo. This is foxtrot victor, report your position over Alpha.
Speaker 1: Bravo and foxtrot victor aren't code names. The hypothetical actors
Speaker 1: who are playing soldiers in this hypothetical movie are using
Speaker 1: the phonetic alphabet, also known as the NATO phonetic alphabet
Speaker 1: or the military alphabet, where each letter is assigned a
Speaker 1: full word. This may seem entirely unnecessary, why not just
Speaker 1: say A instead of alpha, But think back to that scene.
Speaker 1: The static of the radio, maybe the sounds of gunfire
Speaker 1: or air raids, maybe other soldiers barking orders and answering.
Speaker 1: Imagine trying to get a clear message through that radio
Speaker 1: with all that noise. Maybe it's even come up in
Speaker 1: real life when you've tried to spell your name or
Speaker 1: email address while on the phone with customer service. You've
Speaker 1: possibly used your own made up phonetic alphabet. That's S
Speaker 1: is in superb as an apple and M is in music.
Speaker 1: When people mostly communicated by writing letters, this wasn't a problem,
Speaker 1: but as audio communications became more widespread, this kind of
Speaker 1: clarity became necessary. According to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Speaker 1: or NATO, the first internationally recognized phonetic alphabet was invented
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties by the International Telecommunications Union. It
Speaker 1: used geographical names for each letter Amsterdam, Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark,
Speaker 1: and so on. In n one. In time for World
Speaker 1: War Two, the U. S. Army and Navy jointly created
Speaker 1: what's called the Abel Baker alphabet, which was also adopted
Speaker 1: by United Kingdom forces. It uses shorter everyday words and
Speaker 1: they aimes, Abel, Baker, Charlie, dog, easy, fox, etcetera. A
Speaker 1: decade later, in nineteen fifty one, the International Air Transport
Speaker 1: Association revised this alphabet to be less English centric. The
Speaker 1: words used are all common in English, but we're considered
Speaker 1: more universal, incorporating sounds in terms common to French and
Speaker 1: Spanish as well, Alpha, bravo, coca, delta, etcetera. But this
Speaker 1: version was only used in civil aviation, while NATO and
Speaker 1: military forces continued to use the traditional Able Baker. Potentially confusing,
Speaker 1: so in nineteen fifty six, NATO Allies decided to adopt
Speaker 1: one phonetic alphabet for all members to use, changing only
Speaker 1: a few of the words from the revised version. It's
Speaker 1: the phonetic alphabet still used today. In full. It goes Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, golf,
Speaker 1: hotel in Juliette, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, whiskey,
Speaker 1: x Ray, Yankee, and Zulu. This alphabet is used pretty
Speaker 1: much anywhere the clear audio communication is of the highest
Speaker 1: importance and English is being spoken. Military forces, emergency services,
Speaker 1: disaster response teams, civil aviation organizations, and even most amateur
Speaker 1: radio operators all use the phonetic alphabet to spell out
Speaker 1: critical terms. Today's episode is based on the article Alpha, Bravo, Charlie,
Speaker 1: Where did the phonetic alphabet come from? On how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com? Written by Kristen Hall Geisler. A brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang.
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