Phonetic alphabet can mean:
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Phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...
system: a system for transcribing the precise sounds of human speech into writing
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International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): the most widespread such system
** (See
:Phonetic alphabets for other phonetic transcription systems)
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Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographi ...
: an orthography that represents the sounds of a particular language in such a way that one symbol corresponds to each speech sound and ''vice versa''
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Spelling alphabet
A spelling alphabet ( also called by various other names) is a set of words used to represent the letters of an alphabet in oral communication, especially over a two-way radio or telephone. The words chosen to represent the letters sound sufficie ...
radio alphabet: a set of code words for the names of the letters of an alphabet, used in noisy conditions such as radio communication; each word typically stands for its own initial letter
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NATO phonetic alphabet
The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet, technically a ''radiotelephonic spellin ...
: the international standard (e.g., Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta etc.)
** (See
:Spelling alphabets for other radio-telephony spelling alphabets)
{{Disambiguation