A common critic we hear about an EU wide army is What language are they gonna speak but let’s forget Europe 2024,
Rome had a huge empire over the whole Europe, I may be wrong, but I don’t think that commoner spoke proper Latin in remote province. What happens when they join the legion ? Would the units be split by origin region (Dacian with Dacian, Lugdunumese with Lugdunemese) with only officer speaking latin ? Or would you merge legionaries from different province (So you have Tingitanian, a Lustitanian and a Thracian in the same unit) and give them a crash course in military latin (the way the french foreign legion does? ) Even going as far as Rome, Karl the great empire also spread over half of Europe, and modern European nation used to be way more multi-lingual than they are today, and most likely a random southerner/northerner in Britain, France or Germany couldn’t talk to each other.
So how did ancient armies managed the language question ?
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.