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International Phonetic Alphabet
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Wikipedia informs that the International Phonetic Alphabet is in fact the official name of an alphabet used in linguistics created in the late nineteenth century. Alpha Bravo Charlie etc are part of the so-called NATO phonetic alphabet, which, it appears, has never been formally published by NATO at all. So there.
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The International Phonetic Alphabet is a set of phonetic notation which seems to have been invented solely to annoy anyone who had any sort of intentions to actually figure out how something is pronounced. It is never used, as anyone who would have the time to learn the full notation doesn't have any friends to talk to with it.
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The Phonetic Alphabet is used by radio operators, to spell out words. It is useful when exchanging important and precize information (addresses, names, etc) especially during not clear transmission. This alphabet has been changed over the years and in different groups of radio users and different countries the alphabet varying from each other.
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In these downloadable teaching materials, pronunciations are transcribed according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The font used is Times New Roman Phonetics. To install it on your computer, go to www.arts.nie.edu.sg/ell/DavidD/fonts/phfonts.htm and follow the directions there.
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Many unofficial phonetic alphabets are in use that are not based on a standard, but are based on words the transmitter can easily remember. Often, such ad-hoc phonetic alphabets are first name alphabets based on (mostly) men's names, such as Alan Bobby Charlie David Edward Frederick George Howard Isaac James Kevin Larry Michael Nicholas Oscar Peter Quincy Robert Stephen Trevor Ulysses Vincent William Xavier Yaakov Zebedee, or on a mixture of names and other easily recognizable (and locally understandable) proper nouns, such as U.S. states, local cities and towns, etc. One documented example of this is the LAPD phonetic alphabet.
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International Phonetic Alphabet