Phonetic alphabet

On a noisy radio B, D, E, P and T all sound alike. Each letter is therefore spoken as a word chosen to be recognisable to speakers of English, French and Spanish alike. The same words name the code flags.

Spell it

Letters

	Since 1956	Spoken as	US forces 1941 to mid-1950s
A	Alfa	AL FAH	Able
B	Bravo	BRAH VOH	Baker
C	Charlie	CHAR LEE	Charlie
D	Delta	DELL TAH	Dog
E	Echo	ECK OH	Easy
F	Foxtrot	FOKS TROT	Fox
G	Golf	GOLF	George
H	Hotel	HOH TELL	How
I	India	IN DEE AH	Item
J	Juliett	JEW LEE ETT	Jig
K	Kilo	KEY LOH	King
L	Lima	LEE MAH	Love
M	Mike	MIKE	Mike
N	November	NO VEM BER	Nan
O	Oscar	OSS CAH	Oboe
P	Papa	PAH PAH	Peter
Q	Quebec	KEH BECK	Queen
R	Romeo	ROW ME OH	Roger
S	Sierra	SEE AIR RAH	Sugar
T	Tango	TANG GO	Tare
U	Uniform	YOU NEE FORM	Uncle
V	Victor	VIK TAH	Victor
W	Whiskey	WISS KEY	William
X	X-ray	ECKS RAY	X-ray
Y	Yankee	YANG KEY	Yoke
Z	Zulu	ZOO LOO	Zebra

Current alphabet: Radio Regulations, Appendix 14: phonetic alphabet and figure code. The 1941 list: Allied military phonetic spelling alphabets (secondary source; no primary text found online).

Figures

At sea and in the International Code of Signals, figures have their own code words, built from a Latin-based root and the English number.

	Code word	Spoken as
0	Nadazero	NAH-DAH-ZAY-ROH
1	Unaone	OO-NAH-WUN
2	Bissotwo	BEES-SOH-TOO
3	Terrathree	TAY-RAH-TREE
4	Kartefour	KAR-TAY-FOWER
5	Pantafive	PAN-TAH-FIVE
6	Soxisix	SOK-SEE-SIX
7	Setteseven	SAY-TAY-SEVEN
8	Oktoeight	OK-TOH-AIT
9	Novenine	NO-VAY-NINER
.	Decimal	DAY-SEE-MAL
stop	Stop	STOP

Then and now

Before 1956 each service and country had its own list. The words Charlie, Mike, Victor and X-ray survived from the wartime American list into today’s alphabet.