The
Hawaiian alphabet, called
ka pī‘āpā Hawai‘i in Hawaiian, is a variety of the
Latin alphabet created in the
19th century and used to
write the Hawaiian language. Until U.S.
Missionaries to Hawai‘i created a written form, the language was only spoken. It consists of 12
letters and a
symbol, making it one of the shortest alphabets in the world (
Rotokas alphabet has one letter fewer; the
Pirahã language, two fewer). Its inventory consists of the
consonants /p/, /k/, /‘/ or /'/ (
glottal stop or
‘okina, officially written as an opening single quote
‘ with the
Unicode value ‘, which appears either as a left-leaning quote or a quote with greater thickness at the bottom than at the top) or alternatively written as /ʻ/ with the
Unicode value ʻ (which although always having the correct appearance is not supported in some fonts/browsers);, /m/, /n/, /w/ (sometimes rendered as /v/), /l/, /h/ and the
vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. The
macron, called a
kahakō in Hawaiian, used with
vowels, both extends a vowel sound and indicates a stressed
syllable. It does NOT change the vowel sound (as from short to long in
English).
For examples of use of the
‘okina consider the word "
Hawaii," in its proper form appearing as
Hawai‘i, or "
Oahu," which is
O‘ahu. We see from these Hawaiian spellings, that the words are actually pronounced (using
IPA): /ha.ˈvai.ʔi/ and /o.ˈʔa.hu/, with a
glottal stop where the ‘okina is written.
