First of all, most alphabets on the planet are phonetic. So a phonetic alphabet IS a conventional alphabet.
A notable exception to this rule is English, which has a phonemic alphabet instead of a phonetic one.
A phonetic alphabet is more consistent because there is no ambiguity regarding pronunciation.
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Most police stations use The NATO phonetic alphabet, which is also called one of the following:the ICAO phonetic alphabetITU phonetic alphabetNATO spelling alphabetICAO spelling alphabetthe international radiotelephony spelling alphabetFor more information, see related links:
It was the first purely phonetic writing system in the history of humanity (as far as we know). It was an alphabet of only 22 letters, compared to the thousands of symbols required to read Egyptian or Sumerian.
The Korean Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet and the characters presented within it are much more likely to be rounded or oval shaped. When attempting to discern the difference - look for oval shapes.
== The oldest and longest alphabet is the Egyptian alphabet with 45 letters. The Cambodian alphabet has 74 characters. The International Phonetic Alphabet has more: "As of 2007, there are 107 distinct letters and 56 http://www.answers.com/topic/diacritic and http://www.answers.com/topic/prosody-linguistics in the IPA proper. Occasionally symbols are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association." http://www.answers.com/topic/international-phonetic-alphabet
The impportance of having a NATO phonetic alphabet is so police or army personel don't misunderstand the spelling of a place or registration plate .e.g. picture this situation you are at police HQ listening to officers in a car chase...they lose him. one PC can recall the number plate so he tells you so you can dispatch a few more units to search for the car he says, MSO-767-N.....but you mistake it for NSO-767-Mand you nick the wrong guy! But if he said: mike sierra Oscar- 767-November you would NT of mistaken it!