A phonetic alphabet is any of three things:

• A type of phonetic notation used for transcribing the sounds of human speech into writing. This is a linguistic tool, not a replacement alphabet. Among phonetic alphabets are:
  • Americanist phonetic notation
  • The International Phonetic Alphabet
    • SAMPA, an ASCII version
    • X-SAMPA, an extension of SAMPA
    • Kirshenbaum, an ASCII version originally developed for usenet newsgroups
  • The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
  • The phonetic symbols in dictionaries like Webster's Third New International Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary

Relatedly, a writing system that deals with phonemes is likely to be called a phonetic alphabet, although the term phonemic alphabet might be used instead. Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occuring in spoken human language. ... Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing. ... Americanist phonetic notation (also Americanist Phonetic Alphabet, American Phonetic Alphabet, sometimes abbreviated APA) is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and Euro-American anthropologists and language scientists (former Neo-grammarians) for the phonetic and phonemic transcription of Native American and European languages. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... The Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA) is a computer-readable phonetic script using 7-bit printable ASCII characters, based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). ... For other uses, see ASCII (disambiguation). ... The Extended SAM Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at the University of London. ... Kirshenbaum, sometimes called ASCII-IPA, is a system used to represent the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in ASCII. It was developed for Usenet, notably the newsgroups sci. ... The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA), also known as Finno-Ugric Transcription (FUT), is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... 1888 advertisement for Websters Dictionary Websters Dictionary is a common title given to English language dictionaries in the United States, deriving its name from American lexicographer Noah Webster. ... The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD) is a dictionary of American English published by Boston publisher Houghton-Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ...

• A new alphabet for languages which do not have phonemic orthographies. It would replace the current one (at least for learning a language). For example:
  • John Malone's UNIFON
  • Sir James Pitman's ITA, the "initial teaching alphabet"
  • Shavian alphabet, in honor of George Bernard Shaw.
  • Jan Tschichold's alphabet
  • William Bullokar's alphabet
  • Benjamin Franklin had some additional characters to add to the alphabet

• A list of standard words used to identify letters in a message transmitted by voice (including over radio, telephone, etc.). The term phonetic, though common, is a misnomer in this context, as the purpose of such alphabets is to identify spelling rather than pronunciation. They are occasionally known as "radio alphabets". See:
  • UK Police forces' radio alphabet
  • NATO phonetic alphabet
  • Japanese phonetic alphabet
  • Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet
  • RAF phonetic alphabet
  • LAPD phonetic alphabet
  • Finnish armed forces' radio alphabet

UNIFON [[1]] is a phonemic alphabet developed by John R. Malone in the early 1950s on a contract from the Bendix Corporation. ... Sir James Pitman (the grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman) inventor of the Initial Teaching Alphabet. ... The Initial Teaching Alphabet was developed by Sir James Pitman (the grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman, the inventor of a system of shorthand, who himself took up the issue of spelling reform with a variant typeface) as a tool for teaching children to read English. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... G. Bernard Shaw (he hated the George, which was his fathers first name, and never used it, either personally or professionally) (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. ... Jan Tschichold (April 2, 1902 Leipzig, Germany – August 11, 1974 Locarno, Switzerland) was a typographer, book designer, teacher and writer. ... William Bullokar was a 16th-century printer who devised a 40-letter phonetic alphabet for the English language. ... Benjamin Franklin by Jean-Baptiste Greuze 1777 Benjamin Franklin (January 17 [O.S. January 6] 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the most prominent of the Founders and early political figures and statesmen of the United States. ... Message in its most general meaning is an object of communication. ... Human voice consists of sound made by a person using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, screaming or crying. ... The telephone or phone (Greek: tele = far away and phone = voice) is a telecommunications device which is used to transmit and receive sound (most commonly voice and speech) across distance. ... The NATO phonetic alphabet is a common name for the radiotelephony spelling alphabet of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which assigned words to the letters of the English alphabet so that critical combinations of letters could be pronounced and understood by aircrew and air traffic controllers regardless of their... FAA radiotelephony phonetic alphabet and Morse code chart. ... The Japanese phonetic alphabet (和文通話表, literally Japanese character telecommunication chart) is a radiotelephony spelling alphabet, similar in purpose to the NATO phonetic alphabet, but designed to communicate Japanese kana rather than Latin latters. ... The Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet was developed in 1941 and was used by all branches of the United States military until the promulgation of the NATO phonetic alphabet in 1956, which replaced it. ... The RAF phonetic alphabet is not a phonetic alphabet in the sense in which that term is used in phonetics, i. ... The LAPD phonetic alphabet is not a phonetic alphabet in the sense in which that term is used in phonetics, i. ... Finnish armed forces radio alphabet letter code word meaning A Aarne male name B Bertta female name C Celsius Swedish scientist Anders Celsius D Daavid male name E Eemeli male name F Faarao Finnish for pharaoh G Gideon biblical name H Heikki male name I Iivari male name J Jussi...

External links

• Phonetic/spelling alphabets for various languages