![hawaiian okina hawaiian okina](http://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/08/21/news/artf.jpg)
The shape of the ‘okina should loosely resemble the number 6. Many of the previously-mentioned well-intentioned folks mistakenly use a backtick to represent an ‘okina, and it drives me absolutely bonkers.Īs I mentioned to a friend of mine recently, a proper ‘okina is usually the same as left single quotation mark (‘), depending on the font. This brings me to one of my pet peeves and the purpose of this post: misuse of the backtick (`) character. While macrons are usually omitted (they don’t exist in most font sets), the ‘okina is often represented by a foot mark (‘), sometimes (mistakenly) referred to as a straight or neutral single quote mark. Over the last decade, there has been an attempt by many well-meaning locals (Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian) to use substitute characters when true diacriticals aren’t available. In most printed publications, the authors simply omit the diacriticals altogether - the very reason you usually see the name Hawaii, and not Hawai‘i. 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. The town of Lahaina-which you notice does not have an okina-is correctly pronounced as “Law-HIGH-nah,” whereas if it were to be spelled with an okina such as Laha‘ina, it would then be pronounced as “Law-HUH-ee-na.For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of encountering the Hawaiian language, it’s a very simple but elegant language.
![hawaiian okina hawaiian okina](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cv0GnLtUMAEGbSx.jpg)
The okina serves as an instructional guide as to which vowels to pronounce individually and which to blend together. Similarly, the major resort area of Ka‘anapali is correctly pronounced by verbalizing both the first as well as the second “a,” which phonetically looks like “Kah-ah-naw-PAW-lee.” The incorrect way to pronounce the word is to slur the two vowels together by saying “KAW-nah-paw-lee,” or even worse, the dreaded “Ka-NAH-poli.” To use the above examples, when pronouncing the name of island of Lana‘i you would verbalize both the “a” as well as the “i,” for a phonetic pronunciation of “Lah-NA-ee.” The incorrect pronunciation is to blend the final two words together and say “Lah-Nai,” which in the Hawaiian language means “a porch,” and is spelled lanai.
#Hawaiian okina professional
To a professional linguist the okina denotes a glottal stop, which in layman’s terms essentially means that you pronounce both of the vowels it’s sandwiched between. This marking is known as the okina, and rather than letting it confuse you even further, use the okina to help in determining the proper pronunciation. You will often notice what appears to be a backward apostrophe inserted in the middle of Hawaiian words such as Lana‘i and Ka‘anapali. Photo © Daniel Ramirez, licensed Creative Commons Attribution.
![hawaiian okina hawaiian okina](https://gray-khnl-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/-dQRq8kHa2_5VgpvVk8cyYGVFP4=/800x1200/smart/filters:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/WHBKQQJBWFF2JE7WQJZ6FF4W7Q.jpg)
Little, Brown and Company Arrow Icon Arrow icon.Hachette Nashville Arrow Icon Arrow icon.
![hawaiian okina hawaiian okina](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lb1hTLMXNHA/maxresdefault.jpg)
Grand Central Publishing Arrow Icon Arrow icon.