The Hawaiian alphabet (in Hawaiian: ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi) is an alphabet used to write Hawaiian. It was adapted from the English alphabet in the early 19th century by American missionaries to print a bible in the Hawaiian language.

Quick Facts Hawaiian alphabet, Script type ...

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

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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 ʻokina is ignored for purposes of alphabetization, but is included as a consonant.

• Hawaiian Braille