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Twenty-six words standing for letters over a radio.
Also known as: NATO alphabet, ICAO spelling alphabet
The ICAO spelling alphabet assigns a word to each letter so that a call sign survives a poor radio link. The words were chosen by testing across speakers of many languages, which is why several are not obvious English choices — Alfa and Juliett are spelled without their usual endings so that non-English speakers pronounce them correctly.
Assigns a distinct word to each letter so that spelling survives poor radio reception.
Contexts: Public information, Navigation
Was selected by cross-language intelligibility testing rather than by preference, which is why Alfa and Juliett are spelled unconventionally to guide non-English pronunciation.
Contexts: Public information, Navigation
A printed list pairing each capital letter with a word, used aloud rather than displayed.