A Look at the History of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet

The NATO phonetic alphabet is an internationally recognized system that allows the military to avoid miscommunicating similar-sounding letters to increase operational efficiency and save lives in times of war.

It’s also used by emergency services, and in commercial air travel and the private jet charter industry to maintain clear communication in civilian life. Join us as we trace its origins and modern-day uses.

If you mix up and mangle the words of your favorite songs, you’re not alone. There’s a word for this grammatical phenomenon – oronyms. This happens when we fail to hear words or phrases clearly and our brain jumps in to help us by putting together words or phrases from our vocabulary that sound most like those not-so-clear words or phrases.

The part of your brain that’s to blame is the angular gyrus, which uses all your gathered knowledge to fill in unclear, nonsensical phrases with predictable words. Based on your personal, everyday experiences, your brain is more likely to pick a phrase that has practical relevance for you, so you’ll hear “there’s a bathroom on your right”, instead of “there’s a bad moon on the rise”.

A simple case of misheard lyrics can be funny, but what about a pilot mishearing the map grid of a rescue extraction point? Just one wrong letter or number can cost lives. This is why the NATO phonetic alphabet was created, initially for military use but now also in many areas of civilian life.

The war against the angular gyrus begins

Spelling alphabets were created before the First World War in response to advances in voice-supportive two-way radio. Their purpose was to improve the accuracy of communication on low-quality and long-distance telephone circuits.

Between 1927 and 1932, the first non-military international spelling alphabet was developed and adopted by a number of organizations that made changes based on their experiences. They included: the International Commission for Air Navigation, predecessor to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); the International Radio Consultative Committee, predecessor to the International Telecommunication Union; the International Maritime Organization; the United States Federal Government; the Federal Aviation Administration; the International Amateur Radio Union; the American Radio Relay League; the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International; and military organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the now-defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.

How the phonetic alphabet was chosen

Officially called the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet and also known as the ICAO spelling alphabet, the NATO phonetic alphabet is technically not a phonetic alphabet (which helps people with the pronunciation of words). It’s a spelling alphabet designed to clear up misunderstandings when people pronounce the same words differently. In other words, code words are assigned to each letter of the English alphabet so that letter and number combinations can be pronounced and understood by people transmitting information via telephone or radio, even if the quality of the communication channel is poor and the sender and receiver have language differences. This is why it’s so important to stick to the prescribed spelling words.

The phonetic alphabet was settled on only once it had been scientifically tested. It’s now a universal language that has traveled a long road since the Second World War, when many nations used their own versions of a spelling alphabet. It was the need to effectively communicate during joint operations between the US, UK and Australia that prompted the Combined Communications Board to change the US military’s Joint Army/Navy alphabet so it could be used by all three nations.

Around this time, the US military began to study spelling alphabets. Major FD Handy, director of the communications branch of the army, asked for the help of Harvard University's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory. He set them the task of figuring out the most successful word for each letter when using "military interphones in the intense noise encountered in modern warfare”. They sent a list of their word choices through to Major Handy, and this was the start of what we know today as the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Once the war was over, many surviving members of the allied forces began careers in the aviation industry, and the US Able Baker military alphabet was officially adopted by international aviation. Finding that many of the alphabet sounds were unique to the English alphabet, an alternative “Ana Brazil” alphabet was created for use in Latin America. It was abandoned after the International Air Transport Association decided to return to the use of a single universal alphabet. A draft was submitted to the ICAO in 1947.

The following year, the ICAO collaborated with Jean-Paul Vinay, a professor of linguistics at the Université de Montréal in Canada, to iron out a new spelling alphabet based on these criteria:

• A word could only be considered if it was a live word in each of the three working languages, and had a similar spelling in English, French, and Spanish.

• It had to be easily pronounced and recognized by airmen of all languages, and clearly transmissible by radio, and easy to read.

• A chosen word could not have any negative meaning or association.

The revised alphabet was eventually adopted on November 1, 1951, and began to be used for civil aviation on April 1, 1952. The words representing the letters C, M, N, U and X were later replaced with Charlie, Mike, November, Uniform, X-ray, with the final version brought into use on March 1, 1956.

Why the NATO phonetic alphabet may be relevant to you

The NATO phonetic alphabet uses 26 code words, one assigned to each of the letters of the modern English alphabet. It can be used in hundreds of ways in modern life and can avoid miscommunications. For example, over a bad telephone line, it can make the distinction between easily confused letters such as B, C, D, E, P, T, and V.

Below is the version in use today.

NATO Phonetic Alphabet

The phonetic alphabet today

The military carried on using the phonetic alphabet after the Second World War, and its use by civilian organizations has also increased. Today, even the retail industry employs the NATO alphabet in its operations to confirm customer and site details over the phone, especially when needing to authorize a credit agreement or confirm stock codes; a wrong letter or digit can cost a retailer many thousands of dollars in losses. It’s widely used for the same reasons in information technology, when staff work with serial numbers and reference codes that can easily involve 18 or more digits.

In the commercial airline and private aircraft charter industries, the NATO phonetic alphabet is used to accurately record passenger name records. It’s also vital in the medical field, where the correct pronunciation and recording of transmitted information can save lives. It’s even part of everyday life for law enforcement officials, bankers, traders, and utility companies.

Thanks mainly to movies and television, most of us are familiar with using the spelling alphabet to deliver a “well done” with “Bravo Zulu” (letter code BZ), or Berlin’s famous “Checkpoint Charlie” (“Checkpoint C”), and most people associate “Foxtrot” with the military alphabet instead of a ballroom dance.

Tips for using the NATO phonetic alphabet

If you need to use this alphabet, it’s best to memorize it. Stick to the prescribed spelling words to avoid any confusion, and check that the individual you’re communicating with knows you’re spelling out a word using the NATO phonetic alphabet. Some people are still unfamiliar with the concept of a spelling alphabet, so be sure to explain, “I as in India, S as in Sierra, T as in Tango, or Z as in Zulu”. This makes sense to most people.

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