Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters , with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word alphabet is a compound of alpha and beta , the names of the first two letters in the Greek alphabet . Old English was first written down using the Latin alphabet during the 7th century. During the centuries that followed, various letters entered or fell out of use. By the 16th century, the present set of 26 letters had largely stabilised:
58-471: WXYZ may refer to: The last four letters of the English alphabet In broadcasting, the following stations WXYZ-TV , an ABC-affiliated television station (channel 25, virtual 7) licensed to serve Detroit, Michigan, United States WXYT (AM) , a radio station (1270 AM) licensed to serve Detroit, which held the call sign WXYZ from 1930 to 1984 WRIF ,
116-493: A Chronicle of Higher Education blog, Geoffrey Pullum argued that apostrophe is the 27th letter of the alphabet, arguing that it does not function as a form of punctuation . Hyphens are often used in English compound words . Written compound words may be hyphenated, open or closed, so specifics are guided by stylistic policy . Some writers may use a slash in certain instances. The letter most commonly used in English
174-461: A two-way radio or telephone . The words chosen to represent the letters sound sufficiently different from each other to clearly differentiate them. This avoids any confusion that could easily otherwise result from the names of letters that sound similar, except for some small difference easily missed or easily degraded by the imperfect sound quality of the apparatus. For example, in the Latin alphabet,
232-477: A diaresis as in zoölogist and coöperation . This use of the diaeresis is rare but found in some well-known publications, such as MIT Technology Review and The New Yorker . Some publications, particularly in UK usage, have replaced the diaeresis with a hyphen such as in co-operative. In general, these devices are not used even where they would serve to alleviate some degree of confusion. The apostrophe (ʼ)
290-563: A number of new letters as part of a wider proposal to reform English orthography. Other proposals have gone further, proposing entirely new scripts for written English to replace the Latin alphabet such as the Deseret alphabet and the Shavian alphabet . 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
348-687: A number of non-Latin letters that have since dropped out of use. Some of these either took the names of the equivalent runes , since there were no Latin names to adopt, or were runes themselves ( thorn , wyn ). The most common diacritic marks seen in English publications are the acute (é), grave (è), circumflex (â, î, or ô), tilde (ñ), umlaut and diaeresis (ü or ï—the same symbol is used for two different purposes), and cedilla (ç). Diacritics used for tonal languages may be replaced with tonal numbers or omitted. Diacritic marks mainly appear in loanwords such as naïve and façade . Informal English writing tends to omit diacritics because of their absence from
406-558: A popular choice, and the First Name Alphabet came into common use. Spelling alphabets are especially useful when speaking in a noisy environment when clarity and promptness of communication is essential, for example during two-way radio communication between an aircraft pilot and air traffic control , or in military operations. Whereas the names of many letters sound alike, the set of replacement words can be selected to be as distinct from each other as possible, to minimise
464-582: A radio station (101.1 FM) licensed to serve Detroit, which held the call sign WXYZ-FM from 1948 to 1971 Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title WXYZ . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WXYZ&oldid=1215166328 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Broadcast call sign disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
522-497: A set of names given to data bytes for the purpose of spelling out binary data in a clear and unambiguous way via a voice channel. Many unofficial spelling alphabets are in use that are not based on a standard, but are based on words the transmitter can remember easily, including first names , states, or cities. The LAPD phonetic alphabet has many first names. The German spelling alphabet ("Deutsches Funkalphabet" (literally "German Radio Alphabet")) also uses first names. Also, during
580-473: A silent letter). Wynn disappeared from English around the 14th century when it was supplanted by uu , which ultimately developed into the modern w . Yogh disappeared around the 15th century and was typically replaced by gh . The letters u and j , as distinct from v and i , were introduced in the 16th century, and w assumed the status of an independent letter. The variant lowercase form long s (ſ) lasted into early modern English , and
638-487: A single wire with earth return , which made them subject to inadvertent and deliberate interference. Spelling alphabets were introduced for wire telephony as well as on the newer radio voice equipment. Commercial and international telephone and radiotelephone spelling alphabets. (Harald prior 1960) (Etta prior 1960) (Sjua prior 1960) The later NATO phonetic alphabet evolved from the procedures of several different Allied nations during World War II, including: For
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#1732791542487696-803: A spelling alphabet for telephone networks, while ITU-R was involved in the development of radiotelephony spelling alphabets. Even though both of these groups were part of the same ITU, and thus part of the UN, their alphabets often differed from each other. Uniquely, the 1908 Tasmanian telegraph operator's code was designed to be memorized as follows: Englishmen Invariably Support High Authority Unless Vindictive. The Managing Owners Never Destroy Bills. Remarks When Loose Play Jangling. Fractious Galloping Zigzag Knights eXpeditely Capture Your Queen. In World War I battle lines were relatively static and forces were commonly linked by wired telephones. Signals could be weak on long wire runs and field telephone systems often used
754-543: A vowel (as in "myth"). Very rarely, W may represent a vowel (as in "cwm", a Welsh loanword). The consonant sounds represented by the letters W and Y in English (/w/ and /j/ as in went /wɛnt/ and yes /jɛs/) are referred to as semi-vowels (or glides ) by linguists, however this is a description that applies to the sounds represented by the letters and not to the letters themselves. The remaining letters are considered consonant letters, since when not silent they generally represent consonants . The English language itself
812-404: Is E. The least used letter is Z. The frequencies shown in the table may differ in practice according to the type of text. The letters A, E, I, O, and U are considered vowel letters, since (except when silent) they represent vowels , although I and U represent consonants in words such as "onion" and "quail" respectively. The letter Y sometimes represents a consonant (as in "young") and sometimes
870-543: Is also often called a phonetic alphabet , especially by amateur radio enthusiasts, recreational sailors in the US and Australia, and NATO military organizations, despite this usage of the term producing a naming collision with the usage of the same phrase in phonetics to mean a notation used for phonetic transcription or phonetic spelling , such as the International Phonetic Alphabet , which
928-480: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages English alphabet There are 5 vowel letters and 19 consonant letters—as well as Y and W, which may function as either type. Written English has a large number of digraphs , such as ⟨ch⟩ , ⟨ea⟩ , ⟨oo⟩ , ⟨sh⟩ , and ⟨th⟩ . Diacritics are generally not used to write native English words, which
986-484: Is not usually considered part of the English alphabet nor used as a diacritic, even in loanwords. But it is used for two important purposes in written English: to mark the "possessive" and to mark contracted words. Current standards require its use for both purposes. Therefore, apostrophes are necessary to spell many words even in isolation, unlike most punctuation marks, which are concerned with indicating sentence structure and other relationships among multiple words. In
1044-420: Is unusual among orthographies used to write the languages of Europe . The names of the letters are commonly spelled out in compound words and initialisms (e.g., tee-shirt, deejay, emcee, okay, etc.), derived forms (e.g., exed out, effing, to eff and blind, aitchless , etc.), and objects named after letters (e.g., en and em in printing, and wye in railroading). The spellings listed below are from
1102-467: Is used to indicate the sounds of human speech. The names of the letters of the English alphabet are "a", "bee", "cee", "dee", "e", etc. These can be difficult to discriminate, particularly over a limited-bandwidth and noisy communications channel, hence the use in aviation and by armed services of unambiguous substitute names for use in electrical voice communication such as telephone and radio. A large number of spelling alphabets have been developed over
1160-460: The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International . The APCO first suggested that its Procedure and Signals Committee work out a system for a "standard set of words representing the alphabet should be used by all stations" in its April 1940 newsletter. Note: The old APCO alphabet has wide usage among Public Safety agencies nationwide, even though APCO itself deprecated
1218-553: The Oxford English Dictionary . Plurals of consonant names are formed by adding -s (e.g., bees , efs or effs , ems ) or -es in the cases of aitches , esses , exes . Plurals of vowel names also take -es (i.e., aes , ees , ies , oes , ues ), but these are rare. For a letter as a letter, the letter itself is most commonly used, generally in capitalised form, in which case the plural just takes -s or -'s (e.g. Cs or c's for cees ). The names of
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#17327915424871276-465: The minuscule y in most handwriting. Y for th can still be seen in pseudo-archaisms such as " Ye Olde Booke Shoppe". The letters þ and ð are still used in present-day Icelandic (where they now represent two separate sounds, /θ/ and /ð/ having become phonemically-distinct – as indeed also happened in Modern English), while ð is still used in present-day Faroese (although only as
1334-470: The syllables of a word: cursed (verb) is pronounced with one syllable, while cursèd ( adjective ) is pronounced with two. For this, è is used widely in poetry, e.g., in Shakespeare's sonnets. J. R. R. Tolkien used ë , as in O wingëd crown . Similarly, while in chicken coop the letters -oo- represent a single vowel sound (a digraph ), they less often represent two which may be marked with
1392-408: The "Able Baker" was used by most Western countries, while the "Ana Brazil" alphabet was used by South American and Caribbean regions. Pronunciation was not defined prior to 1959. From 1959 to present, the underlined syllable of each code word for the letters should be stressed, and from 1969 to present, each syllable of the code words for the digits should be equally stressed, with the exceptions of
1450-496: The 1898 "Signalling Instruction" issued by the War Office and followed by the 1904 Signalling Regulations this system differentiated only the letters most frequently misunderstood: Ack (originally "Ak") Beer (or Bar) C D E F G H I J K L eMma N O Pip Q R eSses Toc U Vic W X Y Z. This alphabet was the origin of phrases such as "ack-ack" (A.A. for anti-aircraft ), "pip-emma" for pm and Toc H for an ex-servicemen's association. It
1508-507: The 1938 and 1947 alphabets, each transmission of figures is preceded and followed by the words "as a number" spoken twice. The ITU adopted the International Maritime Organization 's phonetic spelling alphabet in 1959, and in 1969 specified that it be "for application in the maritime mobile service only". During the late 1940s and early 1950s, there were two international aviation radio spelling alphabets,
1566-1065: The 19th century (slightly later in American English) used in formal writing for certain words of Greek or Latin origin, such as encyclopædia and cœlom , although such ligatures were not used in either classical Latin or ancient Greek. These are now usually rendered as "ae" and "oe" in all types of writing, although in American English, a lone e has mostly supplanted both (for example, encyclopedia for encyclopaedia , and maneuver for manoeuvre ). Some typefaces used to typeset English texts contain commonly used ligatures, such as for ⟨tt⟩ , ⟨fi⟩ , ⟨fl⟩ , ⟨ffi⟩ , and ⟨ffl⟩ . These are not independent letters – although in traditional typesetting , each of these ligatures would have its own sort (type element) for practical reasons – but simply type design choices created to optimize
1624-616: The Anglo-Saxon futhorc from about the 7th century, although the two continued in parallel for some time. As such, the Old English alphabet began to employ parts of the Roman alphabet in its construction. Futhorc influenced the emerging English alphabet by providing it with the letters thorn (Þ þ) and wynn (Ƿ ƿ). The letter eth (Ð ð) was later devised as a modification of dee (D d), and finally yogh ( Ȝ ȝ )
1682-582: The Greek language, i.e. a set of names used in lieu of alphabet letters for the purpose of spelling out words. It is used by the Greek armed and emergency services. Malay (including Indonesian ) represents the letter "L" with "London", since the word lima means "five" in this language. The Russian spelling alphabet is a spelling alphabet for the Russian version of the Cyrillic alphabet . In Spanish
1740-652: The ICAO/ITU code words for the two letters are used. In Danish and Norwegian the letters " æ ", " ø " and " å " have their own code words. In Danish Ægir , Ødis and Åse represent the three letters, while in Norwegian the three code words are Ægir , Ørnulf and Ågot for civilians and Ærlig , Østen and Åse for military personnel. Estonian has four special letters, õ , ä , ö and ü . Õnne represents õ , Ärni for ä , Ööbik for ö and Ülle for ü . In Finnish there are special code words for
1798-536: The NATO alphabet has “niner” for 9 to distinguish it better from 5 (pronounced as “fife”) and the German word “nein”. Although no radio or traditional telephone communications are involved in communicating flag signals among ships, the instructions for which flags to hoist are relayed by voice on each ship displaying flags, and whether this is done by shouting between decks, sound tubes, or sound-powered telephones , some of
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1856-702: The alphabet in 1974, replacing it with the ICAO spelling alphabet. See https://www.apcointl.org and APCO radiotelephony spelling alphabet . 1967 The FCC regulations for Amateur radio state that "Use of a phonetic alphabet as an aid for correct station identification is encouraged" (47 C.F.R. § 97.119(b)(2) ), but does not state which set of words should be used. Officially the same as used by ICAO, but there are significant variations commonly used by stations participating in HF contests and DX (especially in international HF communications). The official ARRL alphabet changed over
1914-434: The author of the report to ask: Should an efficient American secretary, for example, know several alphabets—one for use on the telephone, another to talk to the telegraph operator, another to call the police, and still another for civil defense? Each word in the spelling alphabet typically replaces the name of the letter with which it starts ( acrophony ). It is used to spell out words when speaking to someone not able to see
1972-466: The diacritic. However, diacritics are likely to be retained even in naturalised words where they would otherwise be confused with a common native English word (for example, résumé rather than resume ). Rarely, they may even be added to a loanword for this reason (as in maté , from Spanish yerba mate but following the pattern of café , from French, to distinguish from mate ). Occasionally, especially in older writing, diacritics are used to indicate
2030-459: The keyboard, while professional copywriters and typesetters tend to include them. As such words become naturalised in English, there is a tendency to drop the diacritics, as has happened with many older borrowings from French, such as hôtel . Words that are still perceived as foreign tend to retain them; for example, the only spelling of soupçon found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses
2088-468: The legibility of the text. There have been a number of proposals to extend or replace the basic English alphabet . These include proposals for the addition of letters to the English alphabet, such as eng or engma (Ŋ ŋ), used to replace the digraph " ng " and represent the voiced velar nasal sound with a single letter. Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet , based on the Latin alphabet, introduced
2146-475: The letters å , ä and ö . Åke is used to represent å , Äiti is used for ä and Öljy for ö . These code words are used only in national operations, the last remnants of the Finnish radio alphabet . In German , Alfa-Echo (ae) may be used for " ä ", Oscar-Echo (oe) for " ö ", Sierra-Sierra (ss) for " ß ", and Uniform-Echo (ue) for " ü ". The Greek spelling alphabet is a spelling alphabet for
2204-463: The letters B, P, and D ("bee", "pee" and "dee") sound similar and could easily be confused, but the words "bravo", "papa" and "delta" sound completely different, making confusion unlikely. Any suitable words can be used in the moment, making this form of communication easy even for people not trained on any particular standardized spelling alphabet. For example, it is common to hear a nonce form like "A as in 'apple', D as in 'dog', P as in 'paper'" over
2262-417: The letters are for the most part direct descendants, via French, of the Latin (and Etruscan) names. (See Latin alphabet: Origins .) The regular phonological developments (in rough chronological order) are: The novel forms are aitch , a regular development of Medieval Latin acca ; jay , a new letter presumably vocalised like neighboring kay to avoid confusion with established gee (the other name, jy ,
2320-615: The likelihood of ambiguity or mistaking one letter for another. For example, if a burst of static cuts off the start of an English-language utterance of the letter J , it may be mistaken for A or K . In the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet known as the ICAO (or NATO) phonetic alphabet , the sequence J–A–K would be pronounced Juliett–Alfa–Kilo . Some voice procedure standards require numbers to be spelled out digit by digit, so some spelling alphabets replace confusable digit names with more distinct alternatives; for example,
2378-634: The most widely known spelling alphabet is the ICAO International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet , also known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, which is used for Roman letters. Spelling alphabets also exist for Greek and for Russian . Spelling alphabets are called by various names, according to context. These synonyms include spelling alphabet , word-spelling alphabet , voice procedure alphabet , radio alphabet , radiotelephony alphabet , telephone alphabet , and telephony alphabet . A spelling alphabet
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2436-418: The noisy conditions on long-distance circuits. Their development was loosely intertwined with radiotelephony spelling alphabets, but were developed by different organizations; for example, AT&T developed a spelling alphabet for its long-distance operators, another for its international operators; Western Union developed one for the public to use when dictating telegrams over the telephone; and ITU-T developed
2494-447: The past century, with the first ones being used to overcome problems with the early wired telephone networks, and the later ones being focused on wireless two-way radio (radiotelephony) links. Often, each communications company and each branch of each country's military developed its own spelling alphabet, with the result that one 1959 research effort documented a full 203 different spelling alphabets, comprising 1600 different words, leading
2552-678: The same distortions that make a spelling alphabet for radiotelephony also make a spelling alphabet desirable for directing seamen in which flags to hoist. The first documented use of this were two different alphabets used by U.S. Navy circa 1908. By 1942, the U.S. Army's radiotelephony spelling alphabet was associated with the International Code of Signals (ICS) flags. (proposed) While spelling alphabets today are mostly used over two-way radio voice circuits (radiotelephony), early on in telecommunications there were also telephone-specific spelling alphabets, which were developed to deal with
2610-445: The speaker, or when the audio channel is not clear. The lack of high frequencies on standard telephones makes it hard to distinguish an 'F' from an 'S' for example. Also, the lack of visual cues during oral communication can cause confusion. For example, lips are closed at the start of saying the letter "B" but open at the beginning of the letter "D" making these otherwise similar-sounding letters more easily discriminated when looking at
2668-409: The speaker. Without these visual cues, such as during announcements of airline gate numbers "B1" and "D1" at an airport, "B" may be confused with "D" by the listener. Spelling out one's name, a password or a ticker symbol over the telephone are other scenarios where a spelling alphabet is useful. British Army signallers began using a partial spelling alphabet in the late 19th century. Recorded in
2726-422: The telephone in customer support contexts. However, to gain the advantages of standardization in contexts involving trained persons, a standard version can be convened by an organization. Many (loosely or strictly) standardized spelling alphabets exist, mostly owing to historical siloization , where each organization simply created its own. International air travel created a need for a worldwide standard. Today
2784-466: The telephone or a radio communications link. Spelling alphabets such as the ICAO spelling alphabet , used by aircraft pilots, police and others, are designed to eliminate this potential confusion by giving each letter a name that sounds quite different from any other. The ampersand (&) has sometimes appeared at the end of the English alphabet, as in Byrhtferð's list of letters in 1011. &
2842-624: The unstressed second syllables of fower, seven, niner, hundred. After WWII, the major work in producing a better spelling alphabet was conducted by the ICAO, which was subsequently adopted in modified form by the ITU and IMO. Its development is related to these various international conventions on radio, including: The ICAO Radiotelephony Alphabet is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization for international aircraft communications. Defined by
2900-665: The word ñoño ( [ˈɲo.ɲo] , 'dull') is used for ñ . Åke is used for " å " Ärlig for " ä " and Östen for " ö " in the Swedish spelling alphabet, though the two-letter substitutes aa , ae and oe respectively may be used in absence of the specific letters. /Julius /Quotiënt The PGP word list , the Bubble Babble wordlist used by ssh-keygen , and the S/KEY dictionary, are spelling alphabets for public key fingerprints (or other binary data) –
2958-487: The years, sometimes to reflect the current norms, and sometimes by the force of law. In rules made effective beginning April 1, 1946, the FCC forbade using the names of cities, states, or countries in spelling alphabets. Certain languages' standard alphabets have letters, or letters with diacritics (e.g., umlauts , rings , tildes ), that do not exist in the English alphabet. If these letters have two-letter ASCII substitutes,
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#17327915424873016-429: Was created by Norman scribes from the insular g in Old English and Irish , and used alongside their Carolingian g . The a-e ligature ash (Æ æ) was adopted as a letter in its own right, named after a futhorc rune æsc . In very early Old English the o-e ligature ethel (Œ œ) also appeared as a distinct letter, likewise named after a rune, œðel . Additionally, the v–v or u-u ligature double-u (W w)
3074-573: Was developed on the Western Front of the First World War. The RAF developed their " telephony spelling alphabet ", which was adopted by all three services and civil aviation in the UK from 1921. It was later formally codified to provide a word for all 26 letters (see comparative tabulation of Western military alphabets). For civilian users, in particular in the field of finance, alternative alphabets arose. Common personal names were
3132-995: Was in use. In the year 1011, a monk named Byrhtferð recorded the traditional order of the Old English alphabet. He listed the 24 letters of the Latin alphabet first, including the ampersand , then 5 additional English letters, starting with the Tironian note ond (⁊), an insular symbol for and : In the orthography of Modern English , the letters thorn (þ), eth (ð), wynn (ƿ), yogh ( ȝ ), ash (æ), and ethel (œ) are obsolete. Latin borrowings reintroduced homographs of æ and œ into Middle English and Early Modern English , though they are largely obsolete (see "Ligatures in recent usage" below), and where they are used they are not considered to be separate letters (e.g., for collation purposes), but rather ligatures . Thorn and eth were both replaced by th , though thorn continued in existence for some time, its lowercase form gradually becoming graphically indistinguishable from
3190-472: Was initially written in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc runic alphabet, in use from the 5th century. This alphabet was brought to what is now England, along with the proto-form of the language itself, by Anglo-Saxon settlers. Very few examples of this form of written Old English have survived, mostly as short inscriptions or fragments. The Latin script , introduced by Christian missionaries, began to replace
3248-515: Was regarded as the 27th letter of the English alphabet, as taught to children in the US and elsewhere. An example may be seen in M. B. Moore's 1863 book The Dixie Primer, for the Little Folks . Historically, the figure is a ligature for the letters Et . In English and many other languages, it is used to represent the word and , plus occasionally the Latin word et , as in the abbreviation &c (et cetera). Old and Middle English had
3306-633: Was taken from French); vee , a new letter named by analogy with the majority; double-u , a new letter, self-explanatory (the name of Latin V was ū ); wye , of obscure origin but with an antecedent in Old French wi ; izzard , from the Romance phrase i zed or i zeto "and Z" said when reciting the alphabet; and zee , an American levelling of zed by analogy with other consonants. Some groups of letters, such as pee and bee , or em and en , are easily confused in speech, especially when heard over
3364-450: Was used in non-final position up to the early 19th century. Today, the English alphabet is considered to consist of the following 26 letters: Written English has a number of digraphs , but they are not considered separate letters of the alphabet: Outside of professional papers on specific subjects that traditionally use ligatures in loanwords , ligatures are seldom used in modern English. The ligatures æ and œ were until
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