How many letters are in the Hawaiian alphabet?

The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters: 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and 8 consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and the okina or glottal stop). It also uses the kahako (macron) over vowels to indicate a long sound.

What is the okina in Hawaiian?

The okina is a glottal stop, written as a reversed apostrophe. It creates a brief pause in pronunciation, like the break in the English word 'uh-oh.' It is considered a consonant and changes the meaning of words. For example, pau (finished) vs. pa'u (soot).

Why does the Hawaiian alphabet have so few letters?

Hawaiian is a Polynesian language that developed in isolation for centuries. The oral tradition did not require a written alphabet until American missionaries created one in the 1820s. They selected only the consonant sounds they heard in spoken Hawaiian, resulting in the minimal 13-letter system.

How do you pronounce Hawaiian vowels?

Hawaiian vowels are pronounced consistently: A as 'ah' (like father), E as 'eh' (like bed), I as 'ee' (like bee), O as 'oh' (like bone), U as 'oo' (like moon). When a kahako (macron) appears over a vowel, the sound is held longer.

Hawaiian Alphabet: 13 Letters, Pronunciation & Writing Guide

The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters. Five vowels and eight consonants. That is it. It is one of the shortest alphabets in the world, and it produces some of the longest words — like the state fish, humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Once you understand how the system works, every Hawaiian word you encounter on your trip becomes readable.

The 13 Letters of the Hawaiian Alphabet

The Hawaiian alphabet, called ka pi'apa, consists of:

5 Vowels: A, E, I, O, U

8 Consonants: H, K, L, M, N, P, W, and the 'okina (glottal stop)

That last consonant is the one that trips people up. The 'okina (written as ') is a brief pause in sound — the same break you make between the syllables of "uh-oh." It is a full letter in Hawaiian, not just punctuation. Dropping it changes word meanings entirely.

Vowel Pronunciation

Hawaiian vowels are pronounced the same way every time. No silent letters, no exceptions.

Letter	Sound	Like English	Example
A	ah	"father"	aloha (ah-LOH-hah)
E	eh	"bed"	hale (HAH-leh) — house
I	ee	"bee"	wiki (WEE-kee) — quick
O	oh	"bone"	ohana (oh-HAH-nah) — family
U	oo	"moon"	pua (POO-ah) — flower

Consonant Pronunciation

Most Hawaiian consonants sound like their English equivalents. The two that need explanation:

W — Pronounced like English "w" after O or U, but closer to "v" after I or E. At the beginning of a word, it can go either way. "Hawaii" is technically "Havai'i" (hah-VAI-ee), though most people say it with a "w" sound.
'Okina (') — A glottal stop. A quick catch of breath in your throat. In Hawai'i, the 'okina creates a pause between the two i's: hah-VAI-ee. Without it, the word would run together differently.

The Two Diacritical Marks

The 'Okina (Glottal Stop)

The 'okina looks like a reversed apostrophe or opening single quote mark ('). It appears between vowels or at the start of a word. Examples:

Hawai'i — hah-VAI-ee (pause between the two i's)
O'ahu — oh-AH-hoo (pause after the O)
Kaho'olawe — kah-HOH-oh-LAH-veh (pause between the two o's)

The 'okina changes meaning. Pau means "finished." Pa'u means "soot" or a type of riding skirt. Ko'u means "my." Kou means "your." Drop the 'okina and you might say the opposite of what you intended.

The Kahako (Macron)

The kahako is a horizontal line over a vowel (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū) that indicates a longer, stressed sound. Think of it as holding the vowel note an extra beat.

Kāne (KAH-neh, with a long "ah") — man, husband
Pāhoehoe (pah-HOH-eh-HOH-eh) — smooth lava
Lānai — the island name (long "ah" on the first syllable)

How the Hawaiian Alphabet Was Created

Hawaiian was a purely spoken language for centuries. Polynesian voyagers carried their language across the Pacific through oral tradition — chants, genealogies, navigation instructions, and stories passed from memory to memory across generations.

The written alphabet was developed in the 1820s by American Protestant missionaries who arrived in Hawaii to convert the Hawaiian population to Christianity. They needed a way to write Hawaiian so they could translate the Bible and create schoolbooks.

The missionaries listened to spoken Hawaiian and assigned Roman letters to the sounds they heard. Since Hawaiian uses fewer distinct consonant sounds than English, only 8 consonants were needed. They initially debated including B, D, R, T, and V — sounds that appeared to overlap with Hawaiian consonants — but settled on the simpler set. The 'okina was added later as linguists recognized it as a distinct consonant.

By the 1830s, literacy rates in Hawaii were among the highest in the world. Hawaiians embraced the written form of their language, producing over 100 Hawaiian-language newspapers between 1834 and 1948.

The Golden Rule: Every Syllable Ends With a Vowel

This is the key to reading Hawaiian. Every single syllable in Hawaiian ends with a vowel. There are no consonant clusters (no "str" or "ng" combinations) and no syllable can end with a consonant. Once you internalize this, long Hawaiian words break apart into simple, readable chunks.

Take humuhumunukunukuapua'a — the state fish. Break it at the vowels: hu-mu-hu-mu-nu-ku-nu-ku-a-pu-a-'a. Each syllable is short and pronounceable. The word is long, but none of the individual pieces are hard.