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How to pronounce ICAO, correctly? Civil Aviation students claim that their teacher told them to pronounce it as

/ˌaɪˌkeɪˈoʊ/, eye-KAY-oh

but when I look at Cambridge Dictionary it pronounces ICAO differently: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/icao

So, how do you pronounce it correctly in Aviation?

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  • $\begingroup$ This question is mine :) I couldn't delete it. I thought that SE network will automatically join the accounts when I write there my email, but it didn't :) $\endgroup$
    – garakchy
    Nov 16, 2019 at 10:22
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    $\begingroup$ @garakchy See aviation.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts $\endgroup$
    – PerlDuck
    Nov 16, 2019 at 11:13
  • $\begingroup$ It seems you are presuming, that the Civil Aviation Instructors are teaching the pronunciation the wrong way? $\endgroup$
    – mike
    Nov 17, 2019 at 14:55

3 Answers 3

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This is 2 years after the primary conversation, but just in case anyone searches this, here's an explanation. The difference between these two schools of thought are that one is an acronym and one is an initialism. "ICAO" is pronounced as an acronym, meaning that one pronounces it as a word, rather than as the letters themselves. In the same way, "NASA" is an acronym because it's pronounced as a word. Conversely, FBI or CIA are initialisms and are spoken by their initials. Literary devices can be both fun and deceiving at times. I hope this clears things up for the next person.

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I have usually seen people in the industry pronounce it as eye-kay-oh. Technically, the correct way would be to pronounce the letters individually as per the English language which is why the dictionary has that but I have never seen anyone pronounce it that way.

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    $\begingroup$ "Technically, the correct way would be to pronounce the letters individually" – Do you have a source for that? I don't think anyone would say that technically, the correct pronunciation of NASA is "en-a-es-a." $\endgroup$
    – Tanner Swett
    Nov 16, 2019 at 13:43
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    $\begingroup$ It's an abbreviation and not an actual word, so pronouncing it as a word doesn't really have a correct way... but saying the individual letters of the abbreviation should be correct. Just like the NYPD is not called "nyeped" or the CIA is not called "chia" or something. $\endgroup$
    – Jan
    Nov 16, 2019 at 17:24
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    $\begingroup$ @Jan It often depends on how pronounceable an abbreviation is. "NASA", "ICAO" and "IATA" work pretty well, "FBI" and "NYPD" don't. Sometimes people get creative: the computer database language "SQL" (structured query language) is often pronounced "sequel". $\endgroup$
    – PerlDuck
    Nov 16, 2019 at 18:07
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    $\begingroup$ ICAO pronounces it eye-kay-oh on their own YouTube channel in English, so I wouldn't say that the organization's own pronunciation is technically incorrect. I don't know how that applies to all countries or languages though; ICAO has other official acronyms for other languages like OACI in French and Spanish plus Cyrillic (apparently a transliteration of ICAO rather than a translation), Arabic (also a transliteration), and Chinese, as shown in ICAO Emblem and its History. $\endgroup$
    – Zach Lipton
    Nov 18, 2019 at 4:55
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    $\begingroup$ @PerlDuck: Or "squill". $\endgroup$
    – Vikki
    Dec 9, 2021 at 8:39
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American aviators reference it as Eye-Kay-Oh. If you speak in English to folks in the Aviation industry, they will immediately understand Eye-Kay-Oh. On the contrary, if you said "Eye - See - Eh - Oh", you will probably get a quizzical expression.

If you are working in a French (or alternative) language environment, then perhaps they may reference the organization differently.

Stick with your aviation instructors - they know what they are doing.

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  • $\begingroup$ I've never heard it stated anything other than in full correct spelling out of every single letter. $\endgroup$
    – jwenting
    Nov 18, 2019 at 13:13
  • $\begingroup$ Are you an American Aviator? What is your background? Just trying to understand in the context of the question. $\endgroup$
    – tmptplayer
    Nov 19, 2019 at 1:29
  • $\begingroup$ I'm an American (although not an aviator), and I've always heard it pronounced "EYE-cow". $\endgroup$
    – Vikki
    Dec 9, 2021 at 8:40
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    $\begingroup$ In the FAA I've always heard it pronounced eye-kay-oh. $\endgroup$
    – RetiredATC
    Dec 9, 2021 at 15:04

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