Why pilots around the world use this funny phonetic alphabet :-)

[Rakaydos]

It is how everyone IN NATO NATIONS pronounces it, which is the actual source of the phonetic alphabet- it's a product of an international committee.

[swjr-swis]

1 minute ago, Rakaydos said:

It is how everyone IN NATO NATIONS pronounces it

Both Spain and the Netherlands are in NATO, and at least NL was in NATO even before it was known as NATO. So no, sorry.

[Rakaydos]

37 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

Both Spain and the Netherlands are in NATO, and at least NL was in NATO even before it was known as NATO. So no, sorry.

They had their chance to change it, they're stuck with it now, so yes, they do pronounce it close enough to this way to be understood.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Rakaydos

[swjr-swis]

Amazing how two persons using the same language (and knowing how to pronounce it) can still manage to not understand each other, eh?

 

[LordFerret]

5 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

Tell me how for a Japanese it is 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce ALPHA the way you do. Tell me how for YOU it is 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce アルファ the way the Japanese do.

You should try Georgian sometime lol.

[Green Baron]

It's just a convention to avoid misunderstanding because radio communications, here VHF, have their limitations.

E. g. B and V or S and F are difficult to distinguish on the radio, even under perfect conditions. Every radio operator (be it flight, marine or amateur) has to learn it and of course use it for spelling and clarification. It's easy to learn, intuitive to use and after a short time of practice everyone can utilizie it right away.

'th' is pronounced as 't' because th can be mistaken as a noise (imagine the sound of the engine in a small aircraft or the wind on deck of a sailing boat) (and of course some peolple just can't lisp, swabian tribes in souswest germany f. e.) :-)

Nine can be mistaken as five (or vice versa) and thus is read 'niner'.

k

edit: And it's robust. Even for japanese (spanish have bigger problems with rrradio) :-)

Edited December 12, 2015 by kemde

[Plusck]

10 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

Amazing how two persons using the same language (and knowing how to pronounce it) can still manage to not understand each other, eh?

 

Ah, the ability to compromise ! What committees are there for, basically

So to compromise: the phonetic alphabet was chosen because the basic sounds of each word are relatively easy to reproduce in all western languages. And where one part of the word (like the Spanish J meaning that a native speaker would say something like "ch'Hooliette" where "ch" is pronounced like in "loch") poses a problem, the rest of the word remains understandable to anyone who knows the phonetic alphabet EVEN IF he/she has no inkling of what any other language sounds like. And a rookie radio operator who has never heard the alphabet in use and just has it written down in front of them will STILL be understandable, in all Roman-alphabet languages.

However, even using the standard alphabet, pilots in different countries tend to vary them for ease of use.

For example, in France when using French as communication language, pilots and radio towers never use "Foxtrot": they use "Fox" instead. I don't know the exact reason why but I would guess that it's because (a) both the "f" and the "cs" sounds are quite common and heavily pronounced in French, (b) the "o" in fox is the same "o" as in Golf and Oscar and quite different in French to the other "o" sounds in the alphabet, and (c) the likeliest mix-up would be with "Oscar", but the "ar" is much more heavily pronounced in French than in English, so that eliminates the possibility of confusion, and (d) sheer laziness and/or historical reasons I don't know about.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Plusck
x

[YNM]

Probably because it's the only one established norm before EVERYONE realizes they DO need one. Not just NATO or anything... The name of this phonetic alphabet is International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet.

[politics] If any NATO, that's because, like, uhh... all the "International (Body Of / Organization Of) blahblahblah (Organization / Body)" are probably set up by NATO members (Allied nations) - even the very rough draft of UN made by Roosevelt intended that ! [/politics]

[linkxsc]

19 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

Tell me how for a Japanese it is 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce ALPHA the way you do. Tell me how for YOU it is 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce アルファ the way the Japanese do.

My previous post gave you two examples of closely related languages in which, even using the same alphabet, it is not 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce those words the same way English speakers do, because the sounds they connect to some of those same characters are very different. There are hundreds of other languages in which those characters are not even part of their alphabet, let alone that they would know 'intuitively' what sounds are connected to them.

I'ma just latch onto your pointing out of Japanese here for a minute. Alpha would end up like you say as Arufa or alufa. I highly doubt that would be "difficult" for any Japanese person to say, nor for anyone else to have trouble understanding, especially if they're training for their pilots exam or some such. The biggest problem with saying alpha would be the l/r mix as I've heard many Japanese speakers pronounce the syllable as both an R or an L, and even jump between the 2 depending on proceeding or following sounds.

Also Japanese is probably 1 of the easiest to pronounce languages in the world, and assuming its spelled phonetically in hirigana/katakana and you know/understand them, it should be 0 problem for anyone in the west to read and pronounce at least "alright". If anything, more mispronunciations of Japanese for westerners come from when you try to interject your own language's rules into the sounding of the word while reading roumaji. This is why most good JP textbooks avoid roumaji at all costs and instead try and teach you using hirigana wherever possible, as you'll have correct pronunciation from there.

Also a better choice of "problem word" would be Bravo. As V is a strange sound in several languages, being pronounced as a "b" in Spainish that I know of, Eastern European languages like to give it a "w" sound. For Japanese, you'd probably end up with Burawo, burabo, or some such as I don't know off the top of my head if there is a "V" sound in that language. Though "volvo" is borubo ボルボ . And typing "vo" of bravo in katakana gets me ヴォ u"a(" indicates different pronunciation for u's character) But it doesnt stop the fact that if I were on a radio and suddenly heard "arufa, burabo" I'd still understand it as alpha bravo because of how distinct the sounds are. And thats the point, even if you took the "words" and had them pronounced by someone who doesn't even speak "english" they should be distinct enough that they can be understood.

Delta, foxtrot, golf, oscar, quebec, and victor also seem "iffy" by comparison, but would all be distinctly understandable if you were expecting nato phonetic.