Comment on Which language was spoken in ancient empire armies ?
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 month agooh, it’s definitely standardized, no doubt. But people are people, and some of them are going to call out as it’s familiar to them, and in some sort of urgent response… you’re not going to get too confused at the German guy reading off grid coordinates as ‘24-Richard Wilhelm Theodor…’ to get to a particular random stretch of the Atlantic. (using the MGRS coordinates. 24RWT)
but most of my point was that’s not an actual language; you’re still going to have to designate some language as the common language- and get enough understanding to at least be functional in that. it seems logical to just pick one… but, uh… well. humans aren’t very logical.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If a German reads 24-richard-wilhelm-theodore to an English guy, he’d write down 24RVT if going by the sound, 24RWT if knowing German pronounces the W with a V sound. This is _exactly_why the NATO alphabet is standardized and swapping things around “in an emergency” isn’t permissible. There are so many variances in pronunciations between languages like this. Since you’re writing in English, watch what happens if you hear someone use Spanish and French words like “Javier Habanero Ennui Allo”. An English speaker might know the words, or might write down HOOO. And then there’s regional differences like Spain with some hard Cs or THs instead of soft C or Mexico with some indigenous Xs that sound like CH instead of H. Not to mention the typical English pronunciation of Uniform starts with a Y sound (some groups say oo-nee-form). And it’s not xylophone in every language, so why not write down a Z?
That’s why they developed one, singular group of words for the alphabet. It’s not perfect, but it’s the group that was picked.
P is for Pterodactyl. C as in Czar.