The Art & Skill of Radio-Telegraphy
-Second Revised Edition-
William G. Pierpont N0HFF
This would be incomplete without some mention of non-English alphabets.
Other languages
require certain diacritical marks, or additional letters, or symbols for
common digraphs (single sounds represented by two letters in writing, like
our th). Here we shall include the Germanic group, French, Spanish,
and Polish, Hungarian, Turkish, all of which use the Latin alphabet, and
Greek, Russian, Hebrew and Arabic, which use different alphabets.
Japanese does not have an alphabet, but uses a syllabary (spelling by syllables
instead of single sounds), and requires 73 - 78 characters
In general, letters which represent sounds more or less identical to those
in English are represented by the same code signals as in English.
For example, B, D, F, G (hard)*, K, L, M, N, P, R, S*, T. "A" represents
the letter "A" in European languages, including Russian, and Alpha in Greek,
Aleph in Hebrew and Alif in Arabic. "C" represents written
"C" in European languages and Polish, but é in Greek, thÉ in Arabic,
samech in Hebrew, and tseh in Russian. "E" represents "E" in European
languages, Greek and both yeh and eh Russian, but vav in Hebrew, and hamza
in Arabic. "G" represents ghain in Arabic, not jåm. "H" represents
"H" in European languages, "H" in Greek (a vowel), "X" in Russian, HeT
in Hebrew and guttural HÉ in Arabic. "I" represents the same letter
in European languages and Greek, i and i-kratkoyi in Russian, yod in Hebrew
and yÉ in Arabic. "J" represents this letter in European languages,
the diphthong "Yi" in Greek, ayin in Hebrew and jåm in Arabic. "O"
represents this letter in European languages, but He in Hebrew and khÉ
in Arabic. "Q" represents this letter in most European languages,
but Psi in Greek, shcha in Russian, qof in Hebrew and qÉf in Arabic.
"S" also represents shån in Hebrew as well as sån. "U" represents
this letter in European languages, "Y" in Russian, the digraph "OY" in
Greek, Tet in Hebrew and TÉ in Arabic. "V" represents this letter
in most European languages, dotted z in Polish, zheh in Russian, the diphthong
"HY" in Greek, and DÉd in Arabic. "W" represents this letter in European
languages, "B" in Russian, ê in Greek, tsade in Hebrew and waw in
Arabic. "X" represents this letter in most European languages, "hard"
L in Polish, Xi in Greek, both tvyordy znak and myakhky znak in Russian
and SÉd in Arabic. "Y" represents this letter in European languages,
"Y" in Greek, yerih in Russian and ZÉ in Arabic. "Z" represents Z
everywhere except Arabic dhÉl. "8" also serves to represent the diphthong
"Oi" in Greek. Additional code characters are needed or used for
the transmission of other languages. Such characters are:-
didahdidah: Ñ, Polish nasal a, Greek diphthong
Ai, Russian ya, Arabic 3ayin. didahdahdidah: , Ü
dididahdidit: Ç, Polish nasal e, Arabic final hÉ. dahdahdahdit:
", Polish digraph cz, Greek diphthong "îY", Russian cheh, Arabic
zÉi. dididahdah: Å, Polish ziet, Greek diphthong "AY", Russian
yu. dahdahdahdah: digraph ch, Greek X, Russian sha, Arabic
shån, Turkish sh-sound. dahdahdidahdah: ¤, and Hungarian ny.
didahdidahdit: Polish ¢. dahdidahdidah: Polish digraph
sz. didahdahdidah: Polish cie. dahdidahdidit: Turkish
á. The Hungarian vowels marked with double quotation mark-like accents
have the same Morse characters as those with double dots.
The Art &Skill of Radio-Telegraphy
©William G. Pierpont N0HFF
This page last updated August 02, 1998
Modifications and compile by Thom LaCosta - K3HRN - December 2004