From Alpha to Zulu and Apples to Zebra
I'm quite a big fan of phonetic alphabets, or spelling alphabets - foxtrot, november, juliet, that sort of thing. My grandmother taught me the standard alpha, bravo, charlie alphabet off by heart when I was a young teenager and had never heard of it before, and I found it immensely pleasing. The representation of letters by words is a nice reversal of the normal state of affairs, and there's rather a wonderful quality of litany about them... and of course there's always something cool about knowing something a little out of the ordinary, and something with the thrill of spies and cops and robbers all the better.
I happened to stray into reading about phonetic alphabets on the wikipedia today - as will happen sometimes (I was wondering where "ack emma" came from). It's very interesting, at least if you're a geek like me.
And I came across this, the alphabet used by the Royal Navy during World War I:
Apples Butter Charlie Duff Edward Freddy George Harry Ink Johnnie King London Monkey Nuts Orange Pudding Queenie Robert Sugar Tommy Uncle Vinegar Willie Xerxes Yellow ZebraAnd it breaks my heart. It speaks so clearly to me, so eloquently, of boys playing a game, all youthful patriotism and Edwardian innocence, the gleeful, inky storybook schoolboys who I cherished in my fierce, bookish childhood heart. Of men still boys, cheeky, swaggering boys, racing to war as to the playground, lambs to the slaughter.
I also like this one, used by the Allies during World War II, enormously - there is something unsquashably cheerful about it:
Able Baker Charlie Dog Easy Fox George How Item Jig King Love Mike Nan Oboe Peter Queen Roger Sugar Tare Uncle Victor William X-ray Yoke Zebra
And this too, an interwar alphabet used in aviation and a hymn to the globe:
Amsterdam Baltimore Casablanca Denmark Edison Florida Gallipoli Havana Italia Jerusalem Kilogramme Liverpool Madagascar New_York Oslo Paris Quebec Roma Santiago Tripoli Upsala Valencia Washington Xanthippe Yokohama Zurich
Able Baker has such beautifully short words, and Amsterdam Baltimore such beautifully long ones!
posted by Eloise @ 8:47 pm
5 comments
5 Comments:
Hi Eloise
I really like the 'hymn to the globe' version. But being a geographer I love place names - Ramblin' Man by Lemon Jelly always gets a play before my travels! I was only aware of the NATO phonetic alphabet in English before. My favourite though comes from learning Italian. It's used for clarity when spelling out words, using the traditional 21 letters. I just love the way saying Italian places feels! Here goes:
A come Ancona; B come Bari; C - Como; D - Domodossola; E - Empoli; F - Firenze; G - Genova; H - Hotel; I - Imola; L - Livorno; M - Milano; N - Napoli; O - Otranto; P - Palermo; Q - Quarto; R - Roma; S - Savona; T - Torino; U - Udine; V - Venezia; Z - Zara.
I have remembered it for several years now. I was particularly excited when travelling by train through 'D' on my way to 'M'!.
Just another random question out of curiosity - what happened to the hamsters? I hope they are still fine and well.
Best wishes
I love these - I have had a bit of a fetish for alphabets ever since I was small, and was obsessed with a book that was called something along the lines of "An Animal alphabet!". The authors were vaguely creative about which animals they used: aye-aye, Bengal tiger, coyote and so on. I really wish that I still had the book, but I could rattle you off an animal/bird alphabet off the top of my head. I often try and get to sleep playing games with alphabets, mainly tragically geeky ones like "Can you name a Myrtaceae genus for every letter of the alphabet (synonyms are allowed)?"
Aye aye, Batrican camel, Coyote, Dugong, Elephant shrew, Flamingo, Gnu, Hoatzin, Iguana, Jay, Kittiwake, Llama, Musk ox, Nightjar, Okapi, Pelican, Quoll, Racoon, Skylark, Toucan, Umbrella bird, Vulture, Walrus, Xenopus, Yak, Zebra
I think yak and zebra might be inevitable. And Xenopus is a frog, so that's cheating.
Oh, and I am madly addicted to Lemon Jelly's "Ramblin' Man" too. It makes me sigh and daydream, and the man's voice (who reads the place-names) is so soft and lovely. I frequently play it far too many times in a row.
Hi Laura J - I'm glad you also like Ramblin' Man. One of my very favourite songs, I just find it so uplifting. I love that Kentish Town and Sudbury get equal billing with Ipanema and Mauritius.
Very impressed with your alphabet. I won't tell you how many I had to look up but I now know how cute an aye aye is!
Yapok - Water opossum
Zebu - An ox with a hump and a dewlap (Lisa Simpson, 1991)
Possible alternatives for 'Y' and 'Z'...?!
I like the Italian alphabet very much... I wonder how many exist in other languages too? And Laura your animal alphabet is brilliant! Elephant shrew instead of elephant indeed! Although I would vaguely have expected a plant one... but I guess that would've been too easy. And hurray for zebus (they're from Madagascar; I saw lots of them there)! I wouldn't have remembered them in an alphabet context though - I don't know I'm very good at such games - pretty good vocabulary and general knowledge but poor memory! They're good for train journeys and such. There's a very old one, "my love is adorable" - you go round taking it in turns to come up with adjectives - adorable, bold, compassionate, etc. You can go to a couple of rounds with that one. I remember playing "my teacher is" with my family too - abominable, boring, creepy, dull... poor teachers!
And I REALLY need to get me some Lemon Jelly! Whenever I hear them I love them.
James - hamsters are basically fine. One of them is fine and well but bites, and the nice one has a tumour on her paw, but it doesn't seem to bother her so the vet told me not to worry about it. If I could combine the two I'd have one perfect hamster!
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