Italian Phonetic alphabet

G

G5AMR

Member
This might be of interest to forum members,we are well used to hearing the phonetic alphabet in the USA on HF
P =Peter
A=Adam etc erc
but perhaps there are some ops who are not aware of the phonetic code used by Italian and some Italian speaking Swiss amateurs

generally it is mostly Italian cities

(A) Ancona (B) Bologna(C) Como (D)Domodossola (E) Empoli (F) Firenze (G) Genova (H)hotel ...what a surprise :) there is no aspired H in Italian
(I) Imola (J) Jolly (K)Kursaal (L) Livorno (M) Milano (N) Napoli (O) Otranto (P)Pisa (Q)Quaderno (R) Roma (S) Siena (T) Torino (U) Udine (V)Venzia (W)Washington (X)Xenia (Y) York (Z) Zara

usually heard on 20 metres
 
Is "H" the only silent letter at the start of Italian words? I was just watching a video where it pointed out the in the written form you must use the silent "H" else it will mean something totally different, even though the spoken sound is the same.

Also, this might sound like a silly question, but when the above phonetic alphabet is used, would the speaker say "hotel" or "otel" (like oh-tel)?

73, Mark...
 
H is used to change the pronunciation of words so that they have a different meaning for example Chiaro (clear) with the addition of the H produces a "K" sound
Words that are followed by E or I without the races H are pronounced differently for example "Cena" meaning evening meal will sound like "Chain ah" because the C followed by either E or I gives a "ch" sound . Not a silly question Mark the speaker would say "otel" because the aspired H does not exist in Italian vocabulary however to indicate the H in a word as I have just described for example if someone was spelling the name of a place the pronunciation becomes an irrelevance as it is just to indicate the spelling :)
 
:) Sorry forgotten something .So if you wished to spell out your callsign for example Genova quatro "otel" Ancona Ancona or mine for example becomes Genova Cinque Ancona Milano Roma
 
So even though the speaker would say "otel" (like oh-tel), another Italian speaker would know they meant "hotel", and that the word was the phonetic for an "H"?

If so that's weird. A bit like us using say "knowledge" as a phonetic word to represent a "K" even though the "K" is silent in that word.

73, Mark...
 
That's a very common fact here. My call is Lima Whiskey One Delta Sierra Echo, however usually in 2mts band I call myself Lima Whiskey 1 Día Sin Estática (on day wirhout static). LW1DSE Osvaldo from Buenos Aires.
 
Why not? An old ham now gone, was LU6EHW or 6 Enanos Haciendo Whisky. A collegue from Uruguay is CX4RF, 4 Ruedas Flojas. LU9DDN here is 9 Docenas De Naranjas. And much more :-)
 
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