Phonetic Alphabet Here you’ll learn the history of the Phonetic Alphabet and then you will learn the Phonetic Alphabet!

A Quick History of the Phonetic Alphabet!

The NATO Phonetic Alphabet was developed to help make messages clearer over the radio. Imagine that you are a radio operator in the middle of a war. Things can get very crazy, and messages coming over the radio waves can be extremely important! Before the creation of the Phonetic Alphabet, messages could easily get mixed up or misheard. This alphabet uses words instead of letters. This helped to clear up confusion. Doesn’t “P” sound like “B”? Or “T”? Or “C”? Or even “E”? Getting mixed up messages was definitely not a good thing!

In the 1920s, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) created the first phonetic alphabet. It used the names of places around the world. It looks much different than the alphabet you will learn today!

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

One early Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet military version, nicknamed the Able Baker alphabet, looked like this in the 1940s.

Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King,

Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra

The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Phonetic Alphabet became effective in 1956 and eventually became the universal phonetic alphabet we use today.

To learn more about NATO’s Phonetic Alphabet, Codes, and Signals, visit their website - https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2018_01/20180111_nato -alphabet-sign-signal.pdfv

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Image link: http://www.ww2incolor.com/us-army/ww2_95.html

Learn the Phonetic Alphabet!

Materials

• Paper • Pencil

Time: 60 min

Instructions

1. Use the Phonetic Alphabet listed on the following page to spell different words using each letter’s code word 2. Try to spell your name 3. You can also try spell words or write whole sentences! 4. Here is an example,

AIRPLANE would be Alpha India Romeo Papa Lima Alpha November Echo

For extra fun, try writing coded messages using the Phonetic Alphabet! You can even try making your own Phonetic Alphabet!

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Phonetic Alphabet

LPHA RAVO

HARLIE ELTA

CHO OXTROT

OLF OTEL

NDIA ULIETT

ILO IMA

IKE OVEMBER

SCAR APA

UEBEC OMEO

IERRA ANGO

NIFORM ICTOR

HISKEY RAY

ANKEE ULU

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