The ʻokina

Level 1

The ʻokina is a letter. It sounds like the small stop in the middle of “uh-oh”. Leaving it out can give you a different word.

How It Works

The ʻokina is one of the 13 letters of the Hawaiian alphabet: five vowels, seven consonants and the ʻokina. It is a glottal stop, the same catch your voice makes in the middle of English “uh-oh”.

Because it is a letter, it changes meaning. These pairs are written the same except for the ʻokina:

WithoutWith
ia “he, she”iʻa “fish”
kou “your”koʻu “my”

The ʻokina comes before a vowel, in the middle of a word or at the start, as in ʻohana and Hawaiʻi. When a word starts with an ʻokina, a capital letter goes on the vowel after it, as in ʻAlika. On a phone or computer, use the Hawaiian keyboard or the ʻokina character. A plain apostrophe or a curly quote is a different character.

Examples (5)

  1. iʻa

    fish

    The ʻokina separates it from ia, “he, she”.

  2. ʻohana

    family

    The word starts with an ʻokina, and the stress falls on the middle syllable: ʻo-HA-na.

  3. Hawaiʻi

    Hawaiʻi

    The ʻokina sits between the last two vowels.

  4. Ke ʻai nei au i ka iʻa.

    I am eating the fish.

    Two words here have an ʻokina: ʻai and iʻa.

  5. koʻu hale

    my house

    Without the ʻokina, kou hale means “your house”.

Common Mistakes

  • Leaving out the ʻokina, which can give a different word.

    Ke ʻai nei au i ka ia.
    Ke ʻai nei au i ka iʻa.

    Without the ʻokina, ia means “he” or “she”, not “fish”.

How It Connects

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The ʻokinaLevel 1

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ʻokina