Hawaiian alphabet
Script type	Alphabet
Creator	American Protestant missionaries
Period	1822–present
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Hawaiian language
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

TheHawaiian alphabet (inHawaiian:ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi) is analphabet used to writeHawaiian. It was adapted from theEnglish alphabet in the early 19th century by Americanmissionaries to print abible in theHawaiian language.

In 1778, British explorerJames Cook made the first reportedEuropean voyage toHawaiʻi. In his report, he wrote the name of the islands as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". In 1822, a writing system based on one similar to the newNew Zealand Grammar was developed and printed by AmericanProtestant missionary Elisha Loomis.^[1] The original alphabet included five vowels and thirteen consonants:

A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, W, F, G, J, S, Y, Z^[1]

and sevendiphthongs:

AE, AI, AO, AU, EI, EU, OU

However, the letters F, G, J, S, Y, and Z were used solely to spell foreign words.

In 1826, the developers voted to eliminate some of the letters which represented functionally redundant interchangeable letters, enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-sound, and thereby optimizing the ease with which people could teach and learn the reading and writing of Hawaiian.^[2][3]

• Interchangeable B/P. B was dropped, P was kept
• Interchangeable L/R/D. L was kept, R and D were dropped
• Interchangeable K/T/D. K was kept, T and D were dropped
• Interchangeable V/W. V was dropped, W was kept

Due to words with different meanings being spelled alike, a separate letter to represent theglottal stop became desirable. As early as 1823, the missionaries made limited use of theapostrophe to represent the glottal stop, but they did not make it a letter of the alphabet. In publishing the Hawaiian Bible, they used theʻokina to distinguishkoʻu ('my') fromkou ('your'). It was not until 1864 that the ʻokina became a recognized letter of the Hawaiian alphabet.^[2]

As early as 1821, one of the missionaries,Hiram Bingham, was usingmacrons in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels. The macron, orkahakō, was used to differentiate between short and long vowels.

The current official Hawaiian alphabet consists of 13 letters: five vowels (A a, E e, I i, O o, and U u) and eight consonants (H h, K k, L l, M m, N n, P p, W w, and ʻ).^[2]Alphabetic order differs from the normal Latin order in that the vowels come first, then the consonants. The five vowels withmacrons (kahakō)– Ā ā, Ē ē, Ī ī, Ō ō, Ū ū – are not treated as separate letters, but are alphabetized immediately after unaccented vowels. The ʻokina is ignored for purposes of alphabetization, but is included as a consonant. These are used in governmental publications, both in Hawaii and with the federal government, for example on the 2023 USA quarter dollar commemoratingEdith Kanakaʻole.

• Hawaiian Braille

• Hawaiian language
• Latin alphabets
• 1822 establishments in Hawaii

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