The print edition of Kaleo: Koolauloa News attempts to use appropriate Hawaiian diacritical marks, including:

• The kahakö, or Polynesian long-vowel, which is indicated by a macron or bar above the letter.
• The 'okina, or glottal stop or break, which is usually represented with either an apostrophe or a reversed apostrophe — i.e. one shaped like the number six.

…but the online edition will no longer generally use Hawaiian diacritics in future posts. Continue reading for a more detailed discussion on this topic:

Long vowels, which are literally enunciated for a longer time than regular vowels, are a feature of all Polynesian phonetics. The meanings of words change with the use of a long vowel versus its regular counterpart. For example, mana in Hawaiian means 'spiritual force' (among other definitions) whereas mänä means 'arid' or 'desert.' Polynesian long-vowels should not be confused with English phonetic "long vowels" that are sometimes used in teaching how to differentiate the pronunciation of, for example, the letter "a" in words such as 'hat' (which has an English "short-A" sound) and 'hate' (which has an English "long-A" sound). English speakers occasionally use long or lengthened vowels for emphasis, but the enunciated length of vowels in English does not change word meaning. For example, although awkwardly written: ple-e-e-e-e-ase or hello-o-o-o-o-o, still have the same meanings regardless of how long their pronunciation is sustained.

The 'okina represents the meaningful sound in Hawaiian and other Polynesian languages caused by briefly closing the air passage with the glottis near the back of the mouth (similar to how the air passage must be closed or "stopped" by the lips when pronouncing a "B" sound). While this glottal stop sound is sometimes found in English (as in the vernacular expression "oh-oh," meaning 'mistake'), its use does not change the meaning of words as it can in Hawaiian. For example: 'ano means "variety" or "kind," but ano means "reverence" (among other meanings for both words). Note that in Polynesian languages the glottal stop can come at the beginning of a word.

Hawaiian diacritics history: Christian missionaries created the written Hawaiian alphabet in the 1820s and 1830s — as their counterparts were doing in other island groups about the same time. They included diacritics in the Bible and other publications to help non-native speakers realize the difference in pronunciation and meaning that long vowels and glottal stops can make in words. Nineteenth-century Hawaiians quickly became one of the most literate races of people in the world, but since native and fluent speakers already knew these differences, they rarely included diacritics in their own writing. With far fewer Hawaiian speakers today, some people inadvertently mispronounce Hawaiian words because of the absence of the diacritical marks. For example, the name of the most populated island in Hawai'i should be pronounced with a glottal stop between the O and the remainder of the name: O'ahu; the name of the most popular beach on O'ahu is more correctly written (and appropriately pronounced) Waikïkï; and the main street through Waikïkï is named after the Islands' last king, Kaläkaua — note that the second 'a' in His Majesty's name is a Hawaiian long-vowel. In the recent past, the government and others have made efforts on several fronts to include Hawaiian diacritical marks on, for example, street and road signs. Kaleo o Ko'olauloa used them for seven years before the daily Honolulu newspapers started to do the same.

Recent changes in attitude: Interestingly, as the teaching of Hawaiian increases, some people are resuming the nineteenth century position that fluent speakers do not need the marks, and are purposefully leaving them out of their written materials. But there's another issue that affects newspapers like ours:

The online problem with diacritics: With the explosive use of the World Wide Web and its attendant search engines, using diacritics presents a real dilemma. For example, try a Google™ search for Oahu versus O'ahu: 3.6 million hits vs. 122,000 hits; or Laie vs. Lä'ie: 640,000 vs. 62,000 . . . and some search engines will not "look for" words with such diacritic marks. This is probably the main reason why Kaleo will no longer use Hawaiian diacritics in its online pages. Other problems include:

• Many users do not have "Hawaiian fonts" installed on their computer, so a Polynesian long-vowel may appear as the vowel with the umlaut or two dots above the letter as in German and other European languages; and the glottal stop may appear as a regular apostrophe or an umlaut-y. The good news is that Hawaiian fonts can be downloaded for free at: http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/enehana/

• The use a regular apostrophe for the 'okina and the umlaut-Vowel combination for the Polynesian long-vowel can definitely look awkward to those not familiar with Polynesian languages.

• In a few cases the online Kaleo previously chose not to include an 'okina diacritic in some words because it would look awkward too close to an English-language apostrophe; for example, Kaleo's style is to write "Hawaii's" and not "Hawai'i's" or "Hawai‘i’s" to show the possessive form of the word Hawai'i.

The Garden Island [Kauai] Hawaii Tribune-Herald [Hilo] HawaiiNews.com [Honolulu] The Honolulu Advertiser [Honolulu] Honolulu Star Bulletin [Honolulu] Honolulu Weekly [Honolulu] Ka Leo O Hawaii [Honolulu] Kaleo o Ko'olauloa [Oahu] Ke Alaka'i [Laie] The Maui News [Wailuku] MidWeek Magazine [Kaneohe] North Shore News [Haleiwa] Pacific Business News [Honolulu] Waikiki News [Honolulu] West Hawaii Today [Kailua Kona]

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