What does a phonetic alphabet do?

Answer 1

The phonetic alphabet is used to make spellings clearer over phone or radio - kilo for letter k, foxtrot for letter f. Police and other organisations use it to make sure that spellings are clear to the person hearing it. For example a car registration number - F123 ABC would be Foxtrot, 1, 2, 3, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.

The full Phonetic Alphabet is as follows;

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, Xray, Yankee, Zulu.

Answer 2

It shows you how to pronouce/say certain letters, phrases, and words. Accented letters, such as é, use the symbols above the letter to show you in textual form how the letter sounds. All vowels in the English language have different types of accented forms due to the long and short way they can be said. For example, "e" can be pronounced "eee" or "eh".

Answer 3

If you are referring to an alphabet that is phonemic instead of phonetic, then a phonemic alphabet does not distinguish between allophones of the same letter.

For example, the American English letterT has several allophones. The t in bottle, tap, and cat are actually pronounced differently, but it is not necessary to use different symbols because the t in cat never appears at the beginning of a word.