Timeline of the Phonetic Alphabet

Oftentimes in movies we hear military personnel or pilots yelling coordinates using words like "alfa", "tango", and "whiskey"; but have you ever wondered why they use those specific words?

ITU Alphabet: 1920s

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.

Back over 100 years ago, when long range radio communication was in its infancy, the phonetic alphabet looked very different from the one we see today. In fact, in the beginning many different organizations had their own alphabets that they used. The first standard phonetic alphabet was created by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) featuring the names of various locations such as Amsterdam and Santiago among other common words.

Able Baker Alphabet: 1941

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​

Years later the US military adopted what they would call the Able Baker phonetic alphabet. It was named after the first two letters of the alphabet and was adopted by the UK not soon after. It was widely used in all military services in those two nations, but struggled outside of the English-speaking world.

IATA Alphabet: 1951

Alfa, Bravo, Coca, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Gold, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Metro, Nectar, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Union, Victor, Whiskey, eXtra, Yankee, Zulu

Although effective for military use in English-speaking nations, many words in the Able Baker alphabet were troublesome for nations such as Spain and France. As such, the alphabet was revised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in order to be more accessible to pilots from those other nations. This meant widespread changes to almost every word as seen above.

NATO Alphabet: 1956

Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu

Some years later, the IATA alphabet was once again revised by NATO to create the phonetic alphabet we know today. This alphabet only changed a few words, but had a lot of research go into it in order to ensure that pilots of any nationality would be able to pronounce and understand every letter. This was the alphabet that was finally adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). A linguist had also worked on it to ensure that it was universally acceptable for civilian and military use.