 To create the alphabet, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) assigned codewords acrophonically to the letters of the English alphabet, so that letters and numbers would have distinct names that would be most easily understood by those who exchange voice messages by radio or telephone, regardless of language differences or the quality of the communication channel.Such spelling alphabets are often called "phonetic alphabets", but they are unrelated to phonetic transcription systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet.The 26 code words in the spelling alphabet are assigned to the 26 letters of the English alphabet in alphabetical order as follows