Hawaiian alphabet

In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported European voyage to Hawaiʻi. 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 new New Zealand Grammar was developed and printed by American Protestant missionary Elisha Loomis.[1] The original alphabet included five vowels and seven consonants:

A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, W, [1]

and seven diphthongs:

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

In addition, the letters F, G, S, Y, and Z were used 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

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 with macrons (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 'okina is ignored for purposes of alphabetization, but is included as a consonant.

• Hawaiian Braille