Unfortunately, the two Hawaiian diacriticals are not used by European languages, which means they’re difficult to accurately represent on a standard US qwerty keyboard. When you hear a native pronounce the name, there’s usually a very short hard pause between the why and ee syllables. The name Hawai‘i is a great example: the ‘okina indicates the name is pronounced hahwhy-ee instead of hahwhy. ![]() ![]() The written form is largely phonetic ( cooked up by American missionaries in the 1800s) and makes use of two diacritical marks: the ‘okina, and the macron (also known as the kahako).Īn ‘okina usually indicates a glottal stop, which is very important in the pronunciation of Hawaiian words. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of encountering the Hawaiian language, it’s a very simple but elegant language.
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