Talk:NATO phonetic alphabet

Alfa or Alpha? Juliett or Juliet?

There is an essay about this article at User:Guy Macon/Alfa or Alpha? Juliett or Juliet?. Shortcuts are WP:ALFA and WP:JULIETT. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:08, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Generation Alpha etc.

On 15 May 2024 92.184.119.64 (talk · contribs) added a paragraph about Generation Alpha, Generation Beta, etc. These are names for generations born beginning in the early 21st century, similar to phrases that have been used, such as ""Millenials" or "Generation Z". There is no citation provided for this. Also, the paragraph suggests this series will continue all the way through Generation Zulu. But I'm inclined to think these names are just a fad and it's very unlikely they will last for centuries. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

The usage is also clearly from the Greek alphabet (Alpha Beta Gamma Delta Epsilon Zeta Eta Theta) and not the NATO phonetic alphabet (Alfa Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel) and thus is irrelevant to this article. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 19:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Mystery formatting

The page uses a wide gamut of formatting, the intention of which is largely unclear (to me, at least). The most confusing usages are in the Timeline table, so take a look at that one, if you would, please.

Some words are in bold, some are not. Some are italicized, some are not. Some are all-caps, others aren't. Some exhibit a combination of formatting. I see no explanation anywhere what this is supposed to mean; the only thing that comes close is the explanatory note that says In print, these code words are commonly capitalized for emphasis, or written in all caps (CCEB 2016).

Can somebody reveal what's intended with this mish-mash of formatting? When the table gives me Kilogramme, what should I glean from it? If nobody can provide an explanation (after "a while"), I might just aim for some consistent format (prob. no bold, no italics) in the tables and change it myself.

As a somewhat separate question: do we have some consensus on how to write the code words in prose? We currently seem to use every conceivable variant:

• ...Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee,...
• ...the same with "Xray"...
• ...the NATO change of spelling of x-ray to xray so that...
• ...and the IMO define compound numeric words (nadazero, unaone, bissotwo...
• ...the compound Latinate prefix-number words (Nadazero, Unaone, etc.), later adopted...
• ...the group itself as VC, or Victor Charlie; the name "Charlie" became...
• For similar reasons, Charlie and Uniform have alternative pronunciations...
• ...it was reported that "Delta" was often replaced by "David" or "Dixie" at...

And that's all just outside the tables.

Could we/should we pick one of these styles (quotation marks [double or single], italics, capitalized, lowercase, all-caps, something else)?

Thanks and regards to any watchers who reply. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 21:32, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that this article has too much inline information about things that are not the NATO phonetic alphabet. The first image the viewer sees is a Morse code chart. I say move everything that isn't the NATO phonetic alphabet (including other aphabets, precurors, and rarely used variants) into a seperate section.

I also propose that we remove all the weird respelling formatting and different respellings from the main section and only present the respellings found in This NATO document --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 05:15, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what "weird respelling formatting" refers to.

Should mentions be italicized or set off with quote marks? — kwami (talk) 06:31, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Moved the table; replaced it w html. — kwami (talk) 06:42, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

My "weird respelling formatting" was a failed attempt to shorten JohnFromPinckney's "do we have some consensus on how to write the code words in prose? We currently seem to use every conceivable variant... Could we/should we pick one of these styles (quotation marks [double or single], italics, capitalized, lowercase, all-caps, something else)?"

I prefer "quotation marks" (", not ') over italics, which read like emphasis to me, but either way is fine as long as we are consistant. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 00:23, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The respellings in our table "Letter code words with pronunciation" do not match the citation at p. §5.2.1.3, Figure 5–1 of reference 13 ( Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation: Aeronautical Telecommunications; Volume II Communication Procedures including those with PANS status).

Again I say, we should delete the respellings from ICAO and replace them with these respellings from NATO: [ https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2018_01/20180111_nato-alphabet-sign-signal.pdf ] --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The NATO respellings are defective. Most critically, they do not indicate where the stress lies, but they also fail to list the alternative pronunciations for C and U. Unless those have been retired, we shouldn't remove them. Apart from that, there are only trivial discrepancies: "hoh-tel", "vic-tah" and "zee-ro", so I don't see the point. Anyway, the ICAO lists respellings together with IPA, so we can assume that they were intended to be equivalent, which we can't do with the NATO list. — kwami (talk) 01:09, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The french-language NATO site doesn't have those alt pronunciations, so we can note that. Other organizations might retain them, though. — kwami (talk) 01:25, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

All respellings are defective in one way or another. That's why the world has largely abandoned respellings and instead uses IPA transcriptions. They were widely used in 1956, which is why the NATO standards contain them. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 15:23, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

From International Phonetic Alphabet:

"...pronunciation respelling systems [are] intended to be more comfortable for readers of English and to be more acceptable across dialects, without the implication of a preferred pronunciation that the IPA might convey."

In the context of the NATO phonetic alphabet a preferred pronunciation is exactly what the standard is trying to convey. The NATO phonetic alphabet is prescriptive, not descriptive. Suppressing variants and resisting changes is a Good Thing. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 16:05, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• The assertion that respellings are defective and therefore should not be included doesn't seem consistent with WP:NPOV. It is not our job to make that kind of judgement, it is our job to encyclopedically reflect the reality. If the NATO standards include the phonetic respelling, then it belongs here. If the NATO standards include IPA transcriptions, then they belong here as well. Including the context - that respellings are an historical artifact that is rarely used in favor of modern IPA transcriptions - whatever the reality on the ground is, that's how we deal with these kinds of issues, not by suppressing the parts we don't like. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 16:08, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

  We're not suppressing anything. The NATO respellings are only trivially different from the ICAO respellings (e.g. vic-tah rather than VIK tah), but convey less information (no indication of stress). There's no point in cluttering the main table with both, but for completeness the NATO respellings are listed in the longer table in the history section, along with several others. IMO we need as much as we can get, because the IPA transcriptions are also defective, and the respellings can help the reader interpret them.

  Anyway, Guy wasn't proposing to add information, but to suppress the ICAO respellings that they don't like. — kwami (talk) 16:41, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

That last sentence (EDIT: The sentence "Guy wasn't proposing to add information, but to suppress the ICAO respellings that they don't like") sounds a lot like casting aspersions. Please assume good faith and stop implying that anyone here has a motive other than improving the article.

Whether you personally think that the The NATO respellings are inferior to the ICAO respellings is irrelevant. The name of the page is NATO phonetic alphabet, not ICAO phonetic alphabet. Despite my personal dislike of all respellings, I have not advocated removing them. Instead I have proposed using this respelling from a NATO source[1] that has been printed out and put on the wall in many places. For many people it is their only exposure to the NATO phonetic alphabet. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding "they do not indicate where the stress lies", the NATO phonetic alphabet is designed to be used by speakers of all languages, including Japanese where each syllable has the same length and strength,[2][3] as opposed to English where some syllables are stressed and lenghtened. Also, in Japan all caps is not commonly used to express emphasis or shouting. Instead they use bold text and exclamation points. You will find this in the Japanese translations of the Harry Potter books,[4] which convey shouting in this way. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Please clarify your referents. You're accusing yourself of assuming bad faith, which I doubt was your intention. (It's rather difficult to follow who's addressing who in this thread.)

Japanese is irrelevant. This is English WP, so we use English conventions. The code words have stressed syllables. A transcription that doesn't show this is defective.

"NATO Phonetic Alphabet" is just the most common name for this system. It doesn't mean that we privilege NATO sources over others. We use the best sources available. If you can find something better than what we have, great, but replacing it with an inferior source just because you saw it on a poster is not a good approach to building an encyclopedia. — kwami (talk) 06:02, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I believe that you may have made a factual error. The NATO Phonetic Alphabet is an international standard, not a common name. Citations to NATO documents trump citations to other standards.

It's as if you claimed that IEEE 754 is "just the most common name" for Floating-point arithmetic and then tried to use citations to bfloat16 as reliable sources for use in the IEEE 754 article.

The fact that many later standards decided to be in agreement with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet may have confused you regarding reliable sourcing for the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.

Also, the NATO Phonetic Alphabet is an international standard, not an English standard. "This is English WP, so we use English conventions" is incorrect. We use English conventions in the language we use to write the article, but not in the definition of what the NATO Phonetic Alphabet is. For example, if you were to expand DIN 5009, all descriptive tables would use German conventions, with explanations for english readers in the article if needed.

Finally, the claim "The code words have stressed syllables" is factually incorrect. Some supplimental explanations for English speakers add stressed syllables, but the NATO Phonetic Alphabet has no stress anywhere in the actual international standard, which was designed for use by users of all languages, including languages the don't use stress or use it differently from English. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 12:58, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Please provide references for any of those claims.

As for English vs Japanese, we use English approximations on WP, not Japanese ones. The English approximations are just that, as noted on the poster. — kwami (talk) 16:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)