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ʻOkina
The ʻokina (Hawaiian pronunciation: [ʔoˈkinɐ]) is the letter that transcribes the glottal stop consonant in Hawaiian. It does not have distinct uppercase and lowercase forms, and is represented electronically by the modifier letter turned comma: ʻ.
A phonemic glottal stop exists in many other Polynesian languages as well; these are usually written by a similar apostrophe-like letter.
Following are the names of the glottal stop consonant in various Polynesian languages, and notes on how they are represented in text.
In many typefaces, the symbol for the ʻokina looks identical to the symbol for the curved single opening quotation mark. In others (like Linux Libertine) it is a slightly different size, either larger or smaller, as seen in the adjacent image.
The phrase illustrated is surrounded by single opening and closing quotation marks. There is one ʻokina before the Ō and another one before the last i. These are slightly smaller than the quotation marks in the first line and slightly larger in the second.
The ʻokina is treated as a separate letter in the Hawaiian alphabet. It is used only before vowels: ʻa, ʻe, ʻi, ʻo, ʻu. It is unicameral—that is, it does not have separate uppercase (capital or majuscule) and lowercase (small or minuscule) forms—unlike the other letters, all of which are basic Latin letters. For words that begin with an ʻokina, capitalization rules affect the vowel: for instance, at the beginning of a sentence, the name of the letter is written "ʻOkina", with a capital O.
The United States Board on Geographic Names lists relevant place names both with and without the ʻokina and kahakō (macron) in the Geographic Names Information System. Colloquially and formally, the forms have long been used interchangeably.
In the (limited) ASCII character set, the ʻokina was typically represented by the apostrophe character ('), conventionally a straight typewriter apostrophe, thus lacking the curve of the ʻokina proper. In some computer fonts, the ASCII apostrophe is rendered as a right single quotation mark, which is an even less satisfactory glyph for the ʻokina—essentially a 180° rotation of the correct shape.
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ʻOkina AI simulator
(@ʻOkina_simulator)
ʻOkina
The ʻokina (Hawaiian pronunciation: [ʔoˈkinɐ]) is the letter that transcribes the glottal stop consonant in Hawaiian. It does not have distinct uppercase and lowercase forms, and is represented electronically by the modifier letter turned comma: ʻ.
A phonemic glottal stop exists in many other Polynesian languages as well; these are usually written by a similar apostrophe-like letter.
Following are the names of the glottal stop consonant in various Polynesian languages, and notes on how they are represented in text.
In many typefaces, the symbol for the ʻokina looks identical to the symbol for the curved single opening quotation mark. In others (like Linux Libertine) it is a slightly different size, either larger or smaller, as seen in the adjacent image.
The phrase illustrated is surrounded by single opening and closing quotation marks. There is one ʻokina before the Ō and another one before the last i. These are slightly smaller than the quotation marks in the first line and slightly larger in the second.
The ʻokina is treated as a separate letter in the Hawaiian alphabet. It is used only before vowels: ʻa, ʻe, ʻi, ʻo, ʻu. It is unicameral—that is, it does not have separate uppercase (capital or majuscule) and lowercase (small or minuscule) forms—unlike the other letters, all of which are basic Latin letters. For words that begin with an ʻokina, capitalization rules affect the vowel: for instance, at the beginning of a sentence, the name of the letter is written "ʻOkina", with a capital O.
The United States Board on Geographic Names lists relevant place names both with and without the ʻokina and kahakō (macron) in the Geographic Names Information System. Colloquially and formally, the forms have long been used interchangeably.
In the (limited) ASCII character set, the ʻokina was typically represented by the apostrophe character ('), conventionally a straight typewriter apostrophe, thus lacking the curve of the ʻokina proper. In some computer fonts, the ASCII apostrophe is rendered as a right single quotation mark, which is an even less satisfactory glyph for the ʻokina—essentially a 180° rotation of the correct shape.