#PHONE SPELLING ALPHABET CODE#

The current military phonetic alphabet with letter characters, telephony, and pronunciation. Only four words – Charlie, Mike, Victor, and X-Ray – are still used from the Able Baker alphabet. IRDS, developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is used by both the United States and NATO. Able Baker was modified several times before established as the universal IRDS during the Cold War in the 1950s.

#PHONE SPELLING ALPHABET CODE#

The Royal Air Force used a radiotelephony system similar to the U.S, but it was clear the Allies needed a streamlined form of communication.Īfter criticism for its English-prominent words, Able Baker was modified to incorporate code words with sounds in English, French, and Spanish and later approved by 31 countries. Its military use wasn’t pertinent until the coming of World War II.īy 1941, the first two radiotelephonic alphabet codes were created: “Able” and “Baker” to represent the first two letters of the alphabet. Its codewords consisted of cities across the world: Amsterdam, Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark, Edison, Florida, Gallipoli, Havana, Italia, Jerusalem, Kilogramme, Liverpool, Madagascar, New York, Oslo, Paris, Quebec, Roma, Santiago, Tripoli, Uppsala, Valencia, Washington, Xanthippe, Yokohama, Zurich. The earliest phonetic alphabet was created in 1927 by the International Telecommunication Union. History of the Military Phonetic Alphabet For instance, Bravo Zulu meaning “Well Done”. Additionally, IRDS can be used to relay military code, slang, or shortcode. For example, Alpha for “A”, Bravo for “B”, and Charlie for “C”.

The phonetic alphabet is often used by military and civilians to communicate error-free spelling or messages over the phone.

More accurately known as International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (IRDS), it consists of 26 code words that substitute each letter of the alphabet. The military phonetic alphabet was created to properly exchange communication by radio or telephone.

Phone spelling alphabet