Hawaiian alphabet - wikipedia Hawaiian alphabet Hawaiian alphabet Type Alphabet Languages Hawaiian language Creator American Protestant missionaries Time period 1822 -- present This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help : IPA. 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. Contents 1 Origins 1.1 ʻOkina 1.2 Kahakō 2 Modern alphabet 2.1 Pronunciation 2.2 Diphthongs 3 See also 4 References Origins In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported Europe voyage to Hawai ʻi. 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. The original alphabet included five vowels and twelve consonants : A, B, D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, T, U, V, and W 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. Interchangeable B / P. B was dropped, P was kept Interchangeable L / R / D. L was kept, R and D were dropped Interchangeable K / T. K was kept, T was dropped Interchangeable V / W. V was dropped, W was kept ʻokina Due to words with different meanings being spelled alike, use of the glottal stop became necessary. As early as 1823, the missionaries made limited use of the apostrophe to represent the glottal stop, but they did not make it a letter of the alphabet. In publishing the Hawaiian Bible, they used the ʻokina to distinguish ko ʻu ( ' my ' ) from kou ( ' your ' ). It was not until 1864 that the ʻokina became a recognized letter of the Hawaiian alphabet. Kahakō As early as 1821, one of the missionaries, Hiram Bingham, was using macrons in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels. The macron, or kahakō, was used to differentiate between short and long vowels. Modern alphabet The current official Hawaiian alphabet consists of thirteen letters : five vowels ( A a, E e, I i, O o, U u ) and eight consonants ( H h, K k, L l, M m, N n, P p, W w, ʻ ). Alphabetic order differs from the normal Latin order in that the vowels come first, then the consonants. The five vowels with macrons -- 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. Pronunciation The letter names were invented for Hawaiian specifically, since they do not follow traditional European letter names in most cases. The names of M, N, P, and possibly L were most likely derived from Greek, and that for W from the deleted letter V. Letter Name IPA A a ʻā / a / E e ʻē / e / I i ʻī / i / O o ʻō / o / U u ʻū / u / H h hē / h / K k kē / k ~ t / L l lā / l ~ ɾ ~ ɹ / M m mū / m / N n nū / n / P p pī / p / W w wē / w ~ v / ʻ ʻokina / ʔ / Diphthongs Diphthongs Diphthongs Pronunciation Examples ai i in ride kai = sea water ae I or eye Mae ʻole = never - fading ao ow in how with lower offglide Maoli = true Kaona = hidden meaning au ou in loud or out Au = I, I am ei ei in eight Lei = garland eu eh - ( y ) oo ʻEleu = lively iu ee - ( y ) oo similar to ew in few Wēkiu = topmost oe oh - ( w ) eh ʻOe = you oi oi in voice Poi = a Hawaiian staple ou ow in bowl Kou = your ui oo - ( w ) ee in gooey Hui = together, team, chorus See also Hawaiian Braille References ^ Jump up to : Walch, David B. ( 1967 ). `` The Historical Development of the Hawaiian Alphabet ''. Journal of the Polynesian Society. 76 ( 3 ) : 353 -- 366. Retrieved June 5, 2015. ^ Jump up to : `` Omniglot.com ''. Omniglot.com. Retrieved 2010 - 02 - 17. Jump up ^ `` Alternative-Hawaii.com ''. Alternative-Hawaii.com. Retrieved 2010 - 02 - 17. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hawaiian_alphabet&oldid=853335104 '' Categories : Hawaiian language Latin alphabets 1822 establishments in Hawaii Hidden categories : Articles containing Hawaiian - language text Talk Contents About Wikipedia Languages Gaelg Magyar Polski Português Русский 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 4 August 2018, at 01 : 07 ( UTC ). About Wikipedia

Question: how many hawaiian letters are in the alphabet
Answer: thirteen