ʻOkina

Following are the names of the glottal stop consonant in various Polynesian languages, and notes on how they are represented in text.

File:ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi in quotes.svg

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 {{okina}}okina is treated as a separate letter in the Hawaiian alphabet. It is only used before vowels except for e: 'a, 'i, 'o, 'u. 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 {{okina}}okina, capitalization rules affect the vowel: for instance, at the beginning of a sentence, the name of the letter is written "{{okina}}Okina", with a capital O.

The United States Board on Geographic Names lists relevant place names both with and without the {{okina}}okina and kahakō (macron) in the Geographic Names Information System. Colloquially and formally, the forms have long been used interchangeably.[http://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/ungegn/docs/23-gegn/wp/gegn23wp82.pdf U.S. Board on Geographic Names: Collection and Dissemination of Indigenous Names] (United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, Twenty-third Session Vienna, 28 March – 4 April 2006, Working Paper No. 82), S. 3: "An example of this has been the addition of the glottal stop (okina) and macron (kahako) to placenames of Hawaiian origin, which prior to 1995 had always been omitted. The BGN staff, under the direction and guidance of the Hawaii State Geographic Names Authority, has been restoring systemically these marks to each Hawaiian name listed in GNIS."

{{Main|Modifier letter turned comma}}

In the ASCII character set, the {{okina}}okina is typically represented by the apostrophe character ('), ASCII value 39 in decimal and 27 in hexadecimal. This character is typically rendered as a straight typewriter apostrophe, lacking the curve of the {{okina}}okina 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 {{okina}}okina—essentially a 180° rotation of the correct shape.

Many subsequent "extended ASCII character sets expanded on the overloaded ASCII apostrophe, providing distinct characters for the left and right single quotation marks. The left single quotation mark has been used as an acceptable approximation to the {{okina}}okina, though it still has problems: the {{okina}}okina is a letter, not a punctuation mark, which may cause incorrect behaviour in automated text processing. Additionally, the left single quotation mark is represented in some typefaces by a "mirrored 9-like" glyph (rather than the "6-like" form), and thus unsuitable for the {{okina}}okina.

In the Unicode standard, the {{okina}}okina is encoded as Modifier letter turned comma ({{char|ʻ}}). It can be rendered in HTML by the entity ʻ (or in hexadecimal form ʻ).[http://unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/NamesList.txt Unicode Standard 5.1] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131217221630/http://unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/NamesList.txt |date=December 17, 2013 }}

Although this letter was introduced in Unicode 1.1 (1993), lack of support for this character prevented easy and universal use for many years. {{as of|2008}}, OS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux-based computers and all new major smartphones have no problem with the glyph, and it is no longer a problem in Internet Explorer 7 as it was in previous versions. U+02BB should be the value used in encoding new data when the expected use of the data permits.

• Glottal stop (letter)
• Modifier letter apostrophe
• Modifier letter turned comma
• Saltillo (linguistics)

{{Reflist}}

• Apple compatibility with Hawaiian added in OS 10.2
• "[http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/text/resources/apple08242002.html Apple Computer Includes Hawaiian Language Support With Latest Operating System]". ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060911164056/http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/text/resources/apple08242002.html |date=2006-09-11 }})
• [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Sep/02/ln/ln03a.html Honolulu Advertiser (September 2, 2002): "I mua! Macintosh 'speaks' Hawaiian"]
• [http://starbulletin.com/2002/09/16/news/story4.html Starbulletin (September 16, 2002): "Macs upgrade to isle punctuation"] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070520012303/http://starbulletin.com/2002/09/16/news/story4.html |date=May 20, 2007 }})
• [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/news/archive/2002/09/02/state2043EDT0123.DTL SFGate (September 9, 2002): "Hawaiian language advocates applaud new Mac operating system"].
• [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Jul/16/ln/ln06a.html Honolulu Advertiser (June 28, 2004): "Hawaiian spellings catch on, but slowly".] (On slow progress in using proper Hawaiian spellings instead of makeshift English spelling.)
• [http://ulukau.org/browsers.php Ulukau: The Hawaiian Electronic Library: Browser information for viewing Hawaiian characters] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061205233736/http://ulukau.org/browsers.php |date=2006-12-05 }})
• [http://www.mairiefaaa.pf The Okina in French Polynesian], a graphic example on the top of the page of the official website of the commune of Faa'a, capital of the French Polynesia (this explains why the INSEE still encodes it like the French apostrophe).
• [http://www.coconutinfo.com/fonts-keyboard-support-pc.html Polynesian Font hints and information on encoding].

{{Latin script}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okina}}

Category:Hawaiian English

Category:Hawaiian language

Category:Latin-script letters

Category:Polynesian languages

Category:Tongic languages