# Phonetic Alphabet
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 24, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153 "2003-05-24T00:32:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/1 "2003-05-24T00:32:18Z")
About 20 years ago, I was taught both the “International Phonetic Alphabet” (“NATO Alphabet”) and also one for the Vietnamese alphabet. Now, I remember the NATO Alphabet because I use it often. All of a sudden, after many years of not having to use it, I find that I need to know the Vietnamese one (with Vietnamese words for the letter names–NOT the actual names of the letters). Anyone know it?
What the hey, whilst we’re on the subject: Anyone know the corresponding “phonetic alphabets” for any other languages, such as Russian, Greek, Korean, etc.?
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/2 "2003-05-24T00:51:18Z")
As an Amateur Operator, I know the ITU Phonetic Alphabet by heart, but Googling has turned up nothing on a Vietnamese equivalent. If you can’t get an answer here (like _that_ could ever happen!) you might try [one of these folks.](http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1998.7/msg00057.html)
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/3 "2003-05-24T02:33:28Z")
I think the answer to the Vietnamese question is “Victor Charlie” 😉
But seriously, folks, the International Phonetic Alphabet has nothing to do with military radio comms.
The [International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet) is a specially designed set of graphic symbols used by linguists to record speech sounds precisely.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/4 "2003-05-24T02:41:46Z")
Oh, that’s a totally different thing than I was thinking about.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/5 "2003-05-24T02:45:51Z")
Thanks, **Jomo Mojo** , I wasn’t following the conversation at all until I read your post and realized **Monty** was talking about those “Able Baker Charlie” things and not the IPA.
I designed a bitmap IPA font back in 1986 because I liked the idea so much and had not found one already available. One sound per symbol, one symbol per sound, works in every language, and no bloody diacriticals.
(At least that’s the idea. I don’t know how well the IPA works for languages like Chinese where pitch changes are an important component of the sound, and I seem to recall that it lacked nasalized equivalents for vowels which sound different nasal versus non-nasal)
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/6 "2003-05-24T02:49:08Z")
Do a thorough search on the Board. A while back somebody posted a link to a site that had the alphabets for dozens of languages.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/7 "2003-05-24T03:41:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \*
> **Thanks, Jomo Mojo, I wasn’t following the conversation at all until I read your post and realized Monty was talking about those “Able Baker Charlie” things and not the IPA.**
Wait, was **Monty** talking about the IPA, or the ITU phonetic alphabet, like I thought? Now, _I’m_ confused.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/8 "2003-05-24T03:43:26Z")
That site was [Omniglot.com](http://www.omniglot.com).
**AHunter3** , IPA shows nasalized vowels with one of those “bloody diacriticals” you railed against: the tilde. ~
They must have gotten the idea from Portuguese nasalized vowels. ã õ
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/9 "2003-05-24T07:01:53Z")
Since **Monty** talked about the “NATO alphabet”, I’m pretty sure he means the ITU phonetic alphabet.
It really shouldn’t be called a phonetic alphabet (if only to avoid confusions such as in this thread), but we seem to be stuck with that name.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/10 "2003-05-24T16:52:18Z")
Jomo is incorrect: I was talking about, as I said in the OP, the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, aka International Phonetic Alphabet. I made that distinction since I am fully aware of the International Phonetics Association’s Alphabet, aka IPA Alphabet. I am, after all, majoring in Linguistics.
FYI: The tilde over the vowels in Vietnamese does not indicate nasalization. It indicates a particular tone, as Vietnamese is a tone language.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/11 "2003-05-24T17:05:44Z")
I did a search on “vietnamese AND alphabet” before posting the OP to this thread. Results = 0. I just did a search on “alphabet” and got over 2000 results. Sorry, folks, but I’m not wading through that many threads! So, I did a search on “alphabet AND radio” and got 28 results; however, none answered my OP to this thread.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/12 "2003-05-24T19:47:12Z")
I wasn’t talking about the tilde over the vowels in Vietnamese. I was responding to **AHunter3** ’s question about the nasalized vowels in the IPA.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/13 "2003-05-24T21:17:39Z")
I know that, Jomo. I was just mentioning that Vietnamese has a couple of quirks with respect to its use of diacritics.
Let’s try to make this query incredibly clear:
What I am looking for is what the Vietnamese military uses as it’s radio phonetic alphabet for the Vietnamese letters.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/14 "2003-05-24T21:22:17Z")
AHAHAHAHA! I can’t believe I did that!
The last sentence of the posting above should read:
> [@](#):
>
> What I am looking for is what the Vietnamese military uses as its radio phonetic alphabet for the Vietnamese letters.
An addendum: I just now thought of sending a query to the Vietnamese consulate in San Francisco. If they answer, I’ll post the answer here.
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### Author:  [@Peregrine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peregrine)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/15 "2003-05-24T22:09:51Z")
A [couple](http://montgomery.cas.muohio.edu/meyersde/PhoneticAlphabets.htm) of [sites](http://www.columbia.edu/~fuat/cuarc/phonetic.html) with radio alphabets for many languages, but no sign of Vietnamese.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/16 "2003-05-24T23:04:13Z")
**Peregrine** posted the page I was referring to. Sorry that it doesn’t contain Vietnamese.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2003, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/17 "2003-05-25T03:20:24Z")
I appreciate it, folks. And I know this query does sound (\<–unintentional pun) silly; however, what I need it for is to spell Vietnamese words over the phone and a GMRS radio. Luckily, the names of the tones are sufficiently different that one can just go with them for the tones.
Isn’t it funny what little things get a hold of you on long weekends?
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2003, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/18 "2003-05-25T03:57:43Z")
Not to hijack too much, but I wonder how nonphonetic languages like Chinese handle clarification of radio calls.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2003, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phonetic-alphabet/177153/19 "2003-05-25T04:35:19Z")
Chinese does have a phonetic alphabet: Pin Yin.
From the link provided above, for the Chinese Armed Forces:
> [@](#):
>
> Aiya, Boli, Ciqi, Desheng, Egu, Fuzhuang, Geming, Heping, I, Yifu, J, Keren, Leguan, Mofan, Nali, Ouyang, Polang, Q, Riguang, Sixiang, Tebie, U, Weida, V, Wudao, W, Wuzhuang, X, Yisheng, Zidian