[dungle6]

The words are 36 bits. 3 12 bit characters (the analogue to a byte)

[jonsen]

Wikipedia: "The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size – byte-sizes from 1[3] to 48 bits[4] are known to have been used in the past."

[andars]

12 3 bit characters.