Talk:ʻOkina

message: Does anyone want to petition Microsoft or X.Org to display U+2018 in place of U+02BB when the font does not support the character?
Microsoft could do this at the kernel-mode GDI subsystem, so TextOutW() could do this without any help from applications.
There are a number of other characters that could benefit from this as well.
-- Myria 19:49, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Petitioning for Support 

message: Generally, a grave accent (`) should never be used as a left single quote. Is a grave accent acceptable in this context?
:There is some precedent for it.  On some old terminals from the 1970s, the grave accent character was replaced with a left single quote (usually displayed as a reversed apostrophe character).  For example, TeX and LaTeX were written for such terminals, and both use a grave accent when a left single quote is intended (such as in `single quotes' or ``double quotes).  Some terminal emulation programs still display a grave accent this way, but it is uncommon.  Usually a grave accent looks like grave accent, and looks nothing like a left single quote.  This is why, in my opinion, the grave accent as a replacement for an ‘okina looks bad.  Mordomo 00:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the main reason it looks so bad is that it takes up so much space, especially in a monotype font.  It might be tolerable if it only took as much space as a real okina.  KarlM 05:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Prior to the 1980s, ASCII officially defined those code points as either-or (either left single quotation mark or grave accent, and likewise either apostrophe or right single quotation mark).  The character set used by SAIL at the time Donald Knuth wrote TeX, which was a superset of (the printable characters of) ASCII, used quotation marks.  (It also had many other symbols not present in ISO 646 or any other commonly-used computer character set prior to Unicode.)  The original standard encoding for PostScript fonts, too, followed this approach—having no need for accent marks, since accented characters were provided for separately—and this was reflected in the (putatively ISO 8859-1) bitmap versions of these fonts donated by Adobe for use in X11.  This really did not become an issue until the widespread adoption of ISO 10646 forced implementors to update their fonts.  It also forced users to consider the problem reflected in this article: picking the "correct" code point when multiple codes with different purposes represent visually indistinguishable glyphs.  (As you can probably tell, I am not optimistic, nor do I consider the exercise particularly useful.  On the other hand, I am a stickler for using the correct flavor of dash, a result of having grown up with TeX, so my opinion should probably not count for much.)  121a0012 02:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

text: It depends on the typeface.  The Unicode value doesn't specify the typeface, and characters can look radically different from one typeface to the next. — QuicksilverT @ 11:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grave accent 

message: We now have the  template which allows proper display of this character. The article therefore needs a thorough reworking to take this into account. --Phil | Talk 09:02, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
:We do?  I see only a square box which is unacceptable. I argued long and hard to have the 'okina accepted.  I do not want to see it replaced by an empty meaningless space. Please explain what is different for the majority of users who do not see an ‘ but a box. I will move this page back to Okina unless this error can be fixed by some other means or explained - Marshman 19:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unicode template 

message: Does anyone know why it is written like the spiritus asper? It seems that the spiritus lenis would have been a better choice. (BTW, I am deliting the unsourced quote there about the glottal stop – if someone can back it up, please do) — Sebastian 00:31, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)
:It's not, it's written as an upside-down spiritus asper.  Or a rotated spiritus lenis, if you prefer, but in any case not the same thing.  KarlM 05:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Okina and Spiritus asper 

message: So, how do we deal with putting the okina in articles? I see someone started an okina template, but it shows up on my browser as the blank square still. I would prefer it just be an apostraphe instead of the square.--Cúchullain t / c 22:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, something seems very wrong with the template which worked just a few days ago, but no longer works. But I cannot get to the template to edit it. - Marshman 01:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Okina in articles

message: The Okina character is looking like one rectangle. Eh?! That's a problem.  You making the articles look crappy. --Localboy 00:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a good point. but one argued in depth over a year ago.  If you are more comfortable doing it that way, then go for it. Others may eventually "correct" those entries, but you should not care one way or the other.  The "'" and  look close on my computer, but not so on other computers. I think the article talks about proper rendering of the 'okina, which is a perfection we should strive for, just because there is a right way to do it. But I have no problem with anyone using "'" instead (caus easier brah), while I do have a problem with renderings that show just a box on most computers. - Marshman 18:07, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Okina

message: I've altered the templates  and  so that the okina will show up for Internet Explorer users by encoding the unicode information in a font that has the okina as a symbol (Lucida Sans Unicode). I am an IE user, and I can see the okina fine now. Ryūlóng 08:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simple Okina fix 

message: How do we change the title of this article from Okina to ʻOkina? As I understand it, the correct spelling of ʻokina is with the ʻokina. It is not okina. Since this article is all about the glottal stop called ʻokina, I think we should try and change the title. ...novice Wikipedian, Kealakekua 09:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, this might be like driving Napoʻopoʻo road downhill (;-), but it's done in the German Wikipedia already: :de:ʻOkina. ThT 07:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Okina versus ʻOkina 

message: All those discussions are about ʻOkina used in the English-speaking area (mostly Hawaiian, and Maori languages and their dialects). But note that Maori dialects in New Zealand has forgotten the concept, and uses a common simplified alphabet (even without diacritics for long vowels; the glottal stop is represented by a letter h whose spelling is not always a glottal stop as this depends of the dialect.
In the French-speaking area (French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and even in New Caledonia, the (9-shaped) typographic apostrophe is used since long inmany official records, despite the apostrophe is also used for denoting the elision.
We have seen other shapes trying to make a clear distinction with the apostrophe, andit looks midway between the turned comma and the apostrophe; so it is effectively larger and even more legible than the two alternates.
It also differs in the order when sorting : in Tahitian, the letter is not part of the primary alphabet but distinctions are made at the third collation level (after case differences), so it behaves as if it was a diacritic.
The use of diacritics in Tahitian for long vowels is also almost inexistant (same remark in Maori) despite it was listed in Marquisan-French dictionnaries published in 1931, and the ʻeta sign may combine well with the role assigned to the macron in Hawaiian (named tarava in Marquisan, I don't know the name in Tahitian).
Can someone investigate about these glyphic differences? Should you still consider the Tahitian ʻeta the same letter as the ʻokina discussed here?
Just for your information, the official website of the Tahitian Language Academy (Fare Vāna'a, or Fare Vāna’a if using a typographical postrophe) created in 1972 is http://www.farevanaa.pf/. it publishes online the Tahitian to French dictionnary (and sells other versions to finance the project); it makes uses of macrons for denoting long vowels, but the normalized orthography only uses a regular quote (which may be written as a typographic apostrophe) and no distinction with the elision apostrophe.
So a good question is finally: do you need Tahitian in the discussion for ʻokina , given that even the official Tahitian Language Academy (created by law of the territorial government) does not use it? is it just for historical references (for the rare texts before 1972, and before the normalization of the current Tahitian orthography ?) so ʻeta would not even be a letter in Tahitian (possibly in Wallisian, Marquesan or other native Kanack languages of New Caledonia), just the functional name describing the use of the regular quote (or typographic 9-shaped apostrophe considered as equivalent)?
Note also: the Tahitian glotal ʻeta does not seem to occur before a long vowel (notmally noted with a tarava i.e. a macron) but only on initials (that are then implicitly long) or between two short vowels. It can then be also written as a circumflex accent on the next vowel... in orthographies that don't use the tarava ! and it can be written like this on standard French keyboards (that don't have a macron, but have a combining circumflex dead key).
The similarity of the rotated glyph for ʻeta and the fact that it can kern lightly with the vowel after it, makes it very near from the circumflex above the next letter ! if you write the tahitian name ʻeta for the glotal like this, you get êta which is exactly the same and orthography (in French) as the Greek letter eta !
That's with those documents that alternate orthographies were created without any mark for the glottal : the circumflexdiacritic was lost in time.
verdy_p 00:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polynesian languages in French areas 

message: In Encyclopedia Britannica online, an "okina" as a Japanese ritual play or a ritualistic prelude. Also, the Japanese named a sub-satellite from the Kaguya (SELENE) spacecraft "okina" (Rstar) also. --Fandyllic (talk) 12:15 PM PST 5 Dec 2007  —Preceding comment was added at 20:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should okina be dismbig'd? 

message: Use a grave accent (`).  It isn't used for anything else anyway.  Loma Russet (talk) 03:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That won't work, the grave (`) looks a lot different from the okina (). C Teng 21:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Search rules treat letters differently than punctuation.  So, "upper-stage" and "upper stage" are recognized as identical, and is a match for a search for "stage".  Kapaau is recognized as two words if it uses a glyph recognized as a punctuation or pronunciation type.  But okina is a letter.  It isn't two separate words with a noise glyph in between. -J JMesserly (talk) 19:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

text: This character is an exercise in sophistry.  At most screen and print resolutions it appears as an inscrutable speck, and one can easily use an apostrophe, grave accent or acute accent in its place and no one would notice. — QuicksilverT @ 11:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: My opinion

message: Just because the Okina shows up in the title for you, Remember The Dot, doesn't mean it shows up for everyone else. For me, it still shows up as a ʻ box. If it doesn't show up as a box for you but as an Okina (), then maybe you have a better computer. The title should be moved back to Okina instead. C Teng 13:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It works for me on both Windows Vista and Windows XP. Any remaining compatibility issues should dim with time. —Remember the dot (talk) 15:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I do realize that it shows up as a box in the title bar, but this is a very minor problem that again should become less common in time. In the article itself it looks fine. —Remember the dot (talk) 15:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's fine in the artice (besides, we have Template:Okina), but I don't think the "ʻ" should stay in the title. It doesn't look right, on my computer, anyway. C Teng 21:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The forms of the title with substitutes for the okina redirect here anyway. --Thnidu (talk) 18:53, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  ʻOkina title? 

message: The article has almost no linguistic content and consists almost entirely of a huge, unnecessarily-detailed discussion of the typography or the `okina.  Surely, it would suffice to briefly say that characters such as apostrophe, open and close inverted comma and grave accent have been pressed into service at various times instead of `okina but that these are inadequate, giving brief reasons, and `okina now has its own unicode codepoint.  I read the article and still know next to nothing about the `okina, except that it's difficult to typeset.  This is like reading an article on the Golden Gate Bridge and finding out nothing other than the kinds of rivets that were thought to be inadequate when the bridge was built.
Could somebody with the appropriate linguistic knowledge please add to the article an explanation of how `okina is used, how it developed and so on?
Dricherby (talk) 20:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's not really a linguistic article. The sound, glottal stop, is covered in its article. The specifics of Hawaiian and other languages are covered in their articles. This is an article about a letter and its typography. --JWB (talk) 20:59, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the citation needed and original research tags added by Dricherby in a mad drive-by.  It looks like the user intended to add an expansion tag, and I'm going to flag the project tag accordingly. Viriditas (talk) 14:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of linguistic content 

message: :...is a unicameral consonant letter used within the Latin script...
What is a "unicameral letter"?  Can some other letters veto each others' legislation?  — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 01:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If I recall correctly, a unicameral letter is a letter that has no separate uppercase and lowercase form (like A vs. a, B vs. b, etc.)—it is caseless (ʻ vs. ... ʻ).  If a particular alphabet is made up entirely of unicameral letters, it is a unicameral alphabet (such as Arabic, Cherokee, Ethiopic, Georgian, Hebrew, etc.).  Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, very interesting... I wasn't aware there was a term for that!  I guess that would mean that the Polynesian alphabets are uniquely semi-bicameral.  ;-)  Considering the number of common Latin letters unused in these alphabets, I wonder why they didn't simply repurpose Q or something, as in Maltese.  — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Semi-bicamerality (!) is not unique to Polynesian alphabets. German uses unicameral ß in an otherwise bicameral Latin alphabet, and several Caucasian languages use unicameral Ӏ in an otherwise bicameral Cyrillic alphabet. (Apparently Unicode does have separate points for capital and lower-case Ӏ, but since they're identical in appearance it's a distinction without a difference.) Pais (talk) 15:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The paločki are not identical in apperance. I've seen handwriting where the lower-case is clearly distinct. And there is both an uppercase ẞ and lowercase ß now. -- Evertype·✆ 12:50, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Unicameral" 

message: If the ʻokina is the first letter of the word ʻokina, then should the O always be lowercase (unless ʻOKINA is all caps)?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.19.73 (talk) 13:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No, at the beginning of a sentence it would be ʻOkina, -- Evertype·✆ 09:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

text: While the other 12 letters of the Hawaiian alphabet have upper and lower case, the okina does not.  If it is the first letter, case is deferred to the vowel immediately after it. - Gilgamesh (talk) 19:00, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

text: Same in Tonga. Strictly ridiculous of course, but that is the way it is. --Tauʻolunga (talk) 05:08, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uppercase or lowercase O? 

message: Shouldn't we have a pronunciation guide for the word itself in the lead? We usually do for less commonly known words and names. I don't even know if the i is , , or . —151.132.206.250 (talk) 19:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Asked and answered at WP:RD/L#Pronunciation of ʻokina (permalink). About to make up some IPA for it. —96.8.24.95 (talk) 05:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation (of the word)