Letter (alphabet) of sounds to make words. A letter is classed as either a consonant or a vowel, depending on how its sound is produced (vowels are "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", and sometimes "y" and "w"). The basic Roman alphabet is used by about one hundred languages, with slight variations. Some versions contain as few as twenty-one characters, some as many as thirty. Letters have specific names associated with them, which may differ with language, dialect, and history. "Z", for example, is usually called "zed" in all English-speaking countries except the US, where it is named "zee". As elements of alphabets,
Morse code abbreviations been used. In fact, in the above example S1 and S2 might not speak the same native language. Of course, real rag-chewing (lengthy conversations) could not be accomplished by non-native speakers without such a common language. Contesters often use a very specialized and even shorter format for their contacts. Their purpose is to process as many contacts as possible in a limited time (e.g. 100–150 contacts per hour). Morse code abbreviations Morse code abbreviations are used to speed up Morse communications by foreshortening textual words and phrases. Morse abbreviations are short forms representing normal textual words and phrases formed from