User:Paradiver/Archive Okina

I am a "Unicode fan" and have been trying to be typographically and philologically correct, entering ʻokina as ʻ . But now I notice everyone else is still using ‘ , even though of course one would not want software to parse it as a quotation mark. Is there a decision on a "standard" method, and if so what is it?
--IslandGyrl 23:06, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's a written standard on Wikipedia, but this issue has been discussed on Talk:Hawaiian language and Talk:Hawaii. There have been efforts in the past to redo the Hawaii article using ʻ but these efforts have been quickly reverted. I can't remember the exact reasoning for it.

The University of Hawaii at Hilo (home of the Hawaiian Language Center and the only graduate program in Hawaiian in the nation) uses Unicode on its pages [1], and if there were any expert opinion I would follow, it would be them. That said, I think one should read a message by Keola Donaghy (Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies at UH-Hilo) posted on Talk:Hawaiian language (at the bottom of the page). 青い(Aoi) 07:50, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

What I gather from reading the material cited above is that &#699; is indeed 100% desirable and correct but may not display properly in some (older, pre-Unicode) browsers / fonts. Would there be a way to have MediaWiki, the underlying software, continue to store the source string &#699; in its databases but (provided <nowiki> is not in effect) substitute the string &lsquo; for it during the step that generates the HTML sent to the user? This would solve an identical problem that arises with other uses of the &#699; character, such as in transliterated Arabic.

I see that Diderot just changed all the occurrences of &#699; I inserted in the spam musubi article back to &lsquo; … (sigh) --IslandGyrl 19:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I can see why it is frustrating. A policy should be written up on this. As for MediaWiki, I'm not a developer, but such a feature can be suggested on MetaWiki or MediaZilla. 青い(Aoi) 01:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

A word of warning: there are Unicode fonts out there which don't support the 'okina. E.g. I'm using "Arial Unicode", and although Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, etc all show up fine, I get a little box in all the Hawaiian words that include the 'okina. I imagine the same will be true for many unsophisticated users of Wikipedia (i.e. the majority of our readers). So: do you want to be absolutely correct for the specialists, or mostly correct for the average person? Purity has its price... Noel (talk) 04:51, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

LSQUO, ‘, works better than { { okina } }, ʻ

The 02BB (or whatever it is) character gives bad results in italics, and in the TOC box. By contrast, the LSQUO looks fine in italics, and in the TOC box, as well as in article text. It also looks fine in the edit box. Thus, the lsquo, or ‘, is a better symbol for "okina" than the 02BB.

Let's see if I can demonstrate this. Check out the following two lines.

1. a‘a --- e‘e --- i‘i --- o‘o --- u‘u
2. aʻa --- eʻe --- iʻi --- oʻo --- uʻu

Line 1 has LSQUO, line 2 has 02BB. As everyone can see, LSQUO is correctly centered, midway between its neighboring characters. By contrast, 02BB is too far to the right, creating an incorrect gap between the preceding character and 02BB. Even worse, it crowds so close to the following character that it forms a ligature with it.

Examples with uppercase vowels.

1. A‘A --- E‘E --- I‘I --- O‘O --- U‘U
2. AʻA --- EʻE --- IʻI --- OʻO --- UʻU

In the TOC box, 02BB appears as a rectangle --- incorrect. By contrast, LSQUO has the correct appearance in the TOC box. To see this, check out the TOC box for the subheading for this section. Clearly, LSQUO gives better results in more contexts than 02BB. So LSQUO should be used for the okina symbol. Agent X 23:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to avoid okina's and kahako's

I put this forward with some trepidation, as I can see from previous discussion that okina's and kahako's are pretty popular around here. (I expected the section named "okina question" to be about whether to use them, rather skipping directly ahead to the technical issues of how to use them.) However, I would respectfully like to suggest that the de facto convention should change from "use whenever possible" to "use sparingly".

First, an admission: I have never lived in Hawaii, have only visited once many years ago when in the sixth grade, and have not paid unnatural attention to Hawaii since. Many people, I presume, would take this admitted level of non-expertise to be a liability to any argument I might make. However, I would like to make it my chief asset. My contention is that my characteristics with respect to Hawaii are more representative of the general wikipedia user than, say, many of the participants in "Hawaii Wikiproject Hawai'i".

Now, the experts on this wikiproject--like all experts--are very valuable to Wikipedia. You have knowledge that, made availible on this English Wikipedia, can benefit the hundreds of millions of English speakers around the world (most who know little about Hawaii). Posting it is a great service. Yet, that service is reduced if that knowledge is for some reason inaccessible, impenetrable, or just unclear. Due to the open nature of this project, it makes sense that experts speak first to the general audience, and only later to other experts and the few members of the general audience that want to dig deeper. (See WP:NAME, which states, for example "Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.")

By making okinas and kahako's the default, many Hawaii-related articles are speaking to a specific Hawaiian-speaking, or at least a Hawaii-inhabiting community, rather than to the community at large (people like me). Perhaps with the exception of those who live in Hawaii, the profusion of okina's and kahako's put a veil of unreadability and foreigness over the content. (Maybe it has the same effect for many Hawaii residents, as well. Like I said, I'm not an expert.) An article with these letters and diacritics is not, of course, undecipherable, like Chinese or Sanskrit. But it is more resistant to coding by English speakers. It's something of a cognitive/psychological fact that most English readers will be somewhat startled by such diacritics (which often are effectively meaningless anyway; I couldn't tell you what a "glottal stop" is to save my life). This distraction is not terminal (at least for native speakers), but does represent an impediment. (It is also not in the spirit of WP:UE, which suggests that we should use names "least surprising to a user")

Thus, in the spirit of readabilty/openness, and in accordance with diverse wikipedia conventions such as WP:NAME, WP:ENGLISH, WP:NCGN, I propose that okina's and kahako's be replaced with "plain English" renderings when possible, both in the title and the main text. There may be exceptions, as words with okina's and kahako's might find/have found their way into mainstream English, and would thus be acceptable on an English wikipedia. In addition, I certainly don't think the okina or kahako should be banished...instead they should be used in the same auxillary informative role that other foreign language terms have, i.e. put in italics or parenthesis, often at the introduction of the corresponding English term. In this way, we will maximize accessibility while wholly preserving content.

Erudy 19:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

• Your proposal deserves support especially with regards to Hawaiian toponyms. The Hawaiian language is not widely used even in Hawaii and this is English Wikipedia (WP:UE). A cursory look at offical websites of Hawaiian communities shows little or no usage of ʻokinas or macrons in toponyms (WP:COMMONNAME). — AjaxSmack 02:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. While readability has bearing for the title and I believe diacritics should not be used there (see my comments on Iao Valley, which shows up as "%E2%80%98%C4%AAao_Valley" in the address bar), I think they should be used wherever possible in the text. How do diacritics put a "veil of unreadability" over words? Are we writing to complete idiots who can't see letters under a few accent marks? As for foreign-ness, it's a foreign word! The suggestion of putting it in italics or parentheses where the English term is introduced is largely irrelevant, since if you're using an English term then the Hawaiian one doesn't come up again anyway. Okina and kahako are an integral part of the rendering of Hawaiian in the Latin alphabet. Moreover, rather than being an impediment, the whole point is that they allow someone unfamiliar with the Hawaiian language to pronounce the word properly from seeing the written form. The reason most sites don't use them is that they can't; since Wikipedia can, it should be keeping the spelling correct to the extent possible. KarlM 09:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment In addition to your argument, it is frequently overlooked or unappreciated that these spellings are frequently used in English especially by people of intimate Hawaiʻi origin, and are not regarded in the slightest as linguistically or culturally foreign, as vocabulary and toponyms have been absorbed in full into the polished English of a great proportion of people with roots in Hawaiʻi. To deny this would be denying polished orthodox English that a whole segment of native-English-speaking population regards as sacrosanct. In particular, I do not speak the Hawaiian language, and my first language is English, but even I consistently use Hawaiian spellings in words and names of Hawaiian origin when I write, with perhaps the sole exception of the word "Hawaiian". But it is not impossible to encounter even people who consistently write "Hawaiʻian" in English. - Gilgamesh 13:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Diacritics should always be used for foreign words used in English (when written in the Latin alphabet). English allows usage of diacritics and their presence greatly increases accuracy. Húsönd 03:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that diacritics should generally be used for foreign words used in English and that Hawaiian terms such as Ali'i or Kahōʻāliʻi are foreign words and should retain ʻokinas and macrons in the titles. However, toponyms are not strictly foreign names as English is an official language in Hawaii and is the predominant language. A large majority of residents use the names without ʻokinas and macrons and this is reflected both in popular usage and on official websites (e.g., Iao Valley State Park). — AjaxSmack 07:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

A place name is no different from a personal name, both are proper names. We're not talking about a word like "hula" that has been incorporated into English vocabulary. I find it particularly ironic that eliminating diacritics was proposed by someone who lists on his/her user page, among the articles they've started or translated, numerous ones like Martín García Óñez de Loyola and Diego Fernández de Córdoba, Marqués de Guadalcazar. KarlM 15:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no call for eliminating diacritics where they are actually commonly used. However, in Hawaii, an English-speaking state of the United States, the English version of placenames should be used in English Wikipedia per WP:UE. Using the Hawaiian forms is much like calling for other states to adopt forms like North Dakhóta, Misi-ziibi, or Šahíyena, Xwé:wamənk because these are the correct native forms of the toponyms. Implying that the ʻokina/macron version of topnyms are more common in English (by titling articles as such) is original research.

And you're correct about personal names. They should also follow the usage of the person, not the correct Hawaiian language version (e.g. John D. Waihee III, Duke Kahanamoku) — AjaxSmack 19:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"Kahanamoku" doesn't have any diacritics in it, and the Waihee page is inconsistent in usage. I've never heard what his personal usage is. As for place names, the examples you give are never used; while Hawaiian names with diacritics are not the most commonly-seen form, the usage is increasing rather than decreasing. For example, as USGS is redoing the topographic maps they are putting diacritics in all the names. KarlM 17:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point about the names above. How about Tejas or Nuevo México (or futher afield Caerdydd, Áth Cliath, and Dùn Èideann) then?

"...The usage [of diacritics] is increasing rather than decreasing." Yes, and when it reaches the point to where a majority of people and sources use them, Wikipedia can change its policy. However, as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should be descriptive rather than prescriptive. I.e., Wikipedia should reflect usage and not prescribe a particular point of view. — AjaxSmack 19:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

All the place names you've mentioned are actual different names, where it's not clear that it's the same place. With the things we're talking about, it's ʻĪao in Hawaiian, and ʻĪao in English.

Part of being descriptive is being accurate. This is a perfect example (albeit a relatively minor one) of the worst thing about Wikipedia: it perpetuates falsehoods simply because lots of people believe them. You can see a more striking example on Talk:Krakatoa, where it was decided to keep "Krakatoa" instead of "Krakatau" because there were twice as many Google hits for the former as the latter. This despite the fact that "Krakatoa" was never even the correct name in English, and was probably a typo for the Portugese spelling "Krakatao". KarlM 08:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I would question your suggestion that different spellings are "falsehoods". It seems you are confusing what might be called "scientific facts" (for instance, "water boils at 100 degrees celcius", "the speed of light is ~300,000,000 m/s" etc.) with "conventional facts" ("the ends of sentences are marked with a period [or exlamation point/question mark]", "traffic drives on the right [left] side of the road" etc) If the whole world believed tommorrow that water boiled at 10 degrees, well, water would still boil at 100. (what an impudent substance!) Such scientific facts go on without us. However, if the whole world decided that tommorrow, the end of sentences would be marked with a smiley face, then that would become the new convention. Dictionaries would (eventually) change, and 3rd grade English teachers would glower at pupils who persisted in the now ungrammatical period. The point is conventional facts become true simply because "lots of people believe [and agree to follow] in them". I see spelling as a conventional fact: the name for some subject is not some objective quality waiting to be discovered, like a boiling point, but a convention to be decided by a community. My point is that the English community seems to have decided in favor of Krakatoa, thereby making it accurate, and that it often decides against the inclusion of okina's and kahako's, thereby making them inaccurate. Erudy 21:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

---

"Part of being descriptive is being accurate. This is a perfect example (albeit a relatively minor one) of the worst thing about Wikipedia: it perpetuates falsehoods simply because lots of people believe them."

Agreeing with User:Erudy, aren't all exonyms "falsehoods"? Krakatoa may not be Bahasa Indonesia but it is English because it's the name most English speakers use. This is true for many other placenames and terms. We use Cologne because the French didn't want to use Köln. The name koala is a misspelling of "koola" but no one would argue that it's "false" - it's just what is most commonly used. Even simple terms like apron (originally "a napron") originated as mistakes. And from Istanbul to Hanoi to Montreal, we use toponyms without diacritics even though the underlying spelling is the same. It's not the job of Wikipedia to comment on these alterations but the text of an article can certainly explain them (e.g., "Iao Valley (Hawaiian: ʻĪao: "cloud supreme") is a lush, stream cut valley in West Maui, Hawaiian Islands...").

I personally favour more accurate scholarly transcriptions at Wikipedia for anything from Russian to Arabic to Hindi but that's not policy. Making Hawaiian placenames an exception to WP:COMMONNAME is not accuracy, it's pedantry. — AjaxSmack 19:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The exonyms you mention above are like the place names you brought up earlier: they are not simply a less-common version of the word, they are never used in modern English. As I pointed out below, you can see from WP:NC:disputes that this is not just an exception for Hawaiian, but in diacritics in general are allowed as an exception and favored by a majority. While not a consensus, it certainly supports keeping it as the WikiProject Hawaiʻi MOS. As for it "not policy", I would remind you of WP:IAR, which includes the following:

• "Don't follow written instructions mindlessly, but rather, consider how the encyclopedia is improved or damaged by each edit." Removing diacritics decreases accuracy while doing nothing for general reader accessibility.
• "Rules derive their power to compel not from being written down on a page labelled "guideline" or "policy", but from being a reflection of the shared opinions and practices of a great many editors."

Frankly I think this discussion has become a waste of time. There are two people in support of removing diacritics (plus one who seems more concerned with MOSs than content), and six opposed. A small enough sample size that it can't be said to be representative, but most definitely not enough to change the current MOS, which says to use diacritics whenever possible. KarlM 11:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you stumbled on WP:NC(UE). Check out this part: "If you are talking about a person, country, town, film, book, or video game, use the most commonly used English version of the name for the article, as you would find it in other encyclopedias and reference works. This makes it easy to find, and easy to compare information with other sources." — AjaxSmack 17:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

A significant problem is that many encyclopedias are published on a national level (in this context, the United States). If an encyclopedia were published according to the educated standards of English in Hawaiʻi, would it omit markings? I don't think so. I have multiple other reference materials (such as from the University of Hawaiʻi Press) that use the markings in all situations. Two of them are maps (one of Hawaiʻi Island and the other of Oʻahu published by the University and sold outside of Hawaiʻi as well [I bought this one in a Border's bookstore in Utah]) that use the markings in every single mention of every single name, including for the name of the state. This is academic reference material by Hawaiʻi's state university, and I think it qualifies as a reference we can use, especially one so intimate to the topic we're discussing. - Gilgamesh 07:11, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that diacritics are used in some cases and I also have maps that use them. But even in Hawaiian English usage, it's not the majority. See Talk:Waikiki for a researched example. Use of the diacritics in most Hawaiian toponyms violates WP:COMMONNAME and is at least pedantic and prescriptive and in some cases maybe even original research. — AjaxSmack 03:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support We should use them when English does, and not elsewhere. When the topic is strongly connected to the Hawaiian islands, and Hawaiian English normally uses them, we should lean in that direction; but only lean and only when Hawaiian English does actually use them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
• Adamant oppose We do not rewrite the whole of Wikipedia to conform to Washington or London. These conventions are wholly valid in English in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere, and can even be very common, which is part of why there are users who use them all the time here. Proper spelling of Hawaiian terms in English should be permanent, as they are most definately not foreign conventions. Additionally, to treat Hawaiian spellings as foreign and non-English (such as in parentheses and even in italics!) especially when there are so many of us of Hawaiʻi origin who use them routinely in all cases, strongly eminates an impression of gross intralinguistic disrespect, like saying "My proper English is better than your proper English," and should be avoided as potently incendiary. Treating it with that impression of disrespect will also entirely guarantee that this issue will remain debated over for a long time to come. - Gilgamesh 13:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
• Abstain/Comment Change to strong oppose I will comment on the current situation in Hawaii first. Most of the people in Hawaii (in Oahu to be specific) don't have an opinion or don't really care about the usage of the diacritics primarily because they haven't learned Hawaiian (this can be seen with pronunciations such as Hah-nah-loo-loo instead of Ho-no-lu-lu). The minority (the children and staff at the total Hawaiian immersion schools, as well as the kumu who teach/speak Hawaiian) strongly favor the use of the diacritics, their reason being that it helps new learners of the language get the pronunciation correct. A couple of other notes:
  • The Honolulu Advertiser's subtitle is Hawai‘i's Newspaper (with the ‘okina), while the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's subtitle is Hawaii's Oldest Daily Newspaper (without the ‘okina).
  • Many older Hawaiian texts, such as the Baibala Hemolele, do not use any diacritics, as printing them made it cumbersome for the printers, and pronunciation and meaning were inferred from context (since many knew Hawaiian in those times).
  • Street names now have reincorporated the diacritics for Hawaiian words.
  • A map search concludes that the usage of Hawaii is greater than Hawai‘i.
  • In some words, diacritics are crucial in the meaning of words. For example, make means to die or to desire, while mākē means masthead.

I oppose the proposal because it goes against this document, which states that diacritics should be in geographical place names when in Hawaiian. This article from a local newspaper says that the only reason holding back the government from adding the diacritical marks is due to technical restrictions. I don't believe that technical restrictions are stopping us from incorrectly spelling Hawaiian words. To retain accuracy of Hawaiian titles, I believe that the diacritics should be strongly recommended. Singularity 00:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose As the editor of a book published by the Bishop Museum, I found in my research that 'okina and kahakō were not used in early writings, even in hand-written documents, probably because fluent speakers knew from the context how to pronounce the words. As a non-Hawaiian speaker, I find 'okina and kahakō essential for understanding how to pronounce the words. An English speaking person with a passing interest in Hawai'i who stumbles across an article here and finds the word ho'oponopono versus hooponopono will have an easier time pronouncing the word with the 'okina. As an encyclopedia, WP should reflect official usage of the state and the current policy is to use 'okina and kahakō. However, I admit to being lazy and using an apostrophe rather than an official 'okina. Mary Kawena Pukui herself, the author of the Hawaiian Dictionary, wrote that using the apostrophe was fine. Makana Chai 23:17, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose the proposal, as someone Hawaiʻi-born. I think people would agree that an encyclopedia ought not to be less scholarly than a daily newspaper or a high school (the Honolulu Advertiser and Punahou School have both been using Hawaiian diacritics as the norm now for years). Also, although the original proposer may be free of any such motives, there is a political dimension, namely, a pro-North American annexationist desire to roll back anything that strengthens awareness of a distinct Hawaiian culture and identity. --IslandGyrl 10:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Exactly. I could not have put it better than that. I have zero actual native Hawaiian ancestry and even I understand exactly what you mean. The issue of Hawaiian English usage is not purely one of the considerations of indigenous Hawaiian people—there are many Hawaiʻi-born people whose ancestors all came from all different corners of the globe who hold Hawaiian educated standards in no less esteem and validation. It is virtually impossible not to sense strong assimilationist undertones in this, and there exists no happy euphemism for a message that essentially means "You're in America now, and this is how Americans do things, so shut up." An admission into statehood for government representation is not a carte blanche to decree that the Hawaiʻi education system should be wholly rewritten to be a clone of any other state. It's like decreeing that Kāneʻohe is now Milwaukee and is obligated to find itself located on Lake Michigan. It's that absurd. - Gilgamesh 08:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Potential compromise

Despite my position stated above, I can tolerate a rule similar to the MOS for Ireland-related articles. Singularity 00:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to put words into the mouths of others (especially those I disagree with), but I don't see that to be much of a compromise. It sounds like the guidelines mentioned there would only apply to places like Diamond Head or Pearl Harbor, where the English name is overwhelmingly predominant, and the article is (correctly, IMO) placed under that name rather than the Hawaiian one. The Ireland MOS says that the accent marks should be used in Irish names, and applying that here would mean keeping the ʻokina and kahakō. KarlM 11:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Wholly agreed. And the vast majority of Irish people do not speak Irish at home either. If I were Irish (I'm actually of Gallowegian Gaelic descent but of Hawaiʻi birth), I would judiciously use diacritics in all places in Gaelic words too. And I've never been to Ireland, and I do that anyway! ^_^ It seems absolutely perfectly sensible. In Ireland, even some English version place names are fully Gaelic spellings with diacritics, such as Dún Laoghaire. - Gilgamesh 13:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I will stand with my earlier statement. Singularity 22:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't disagreeing with you (I would like to keep diacritics, so I think using the Irish MOS as at least a baseline for ours is fine), just pointing out that in my interpretation of it, it would mean keeping them wherever a Hawaiian-language name is used. The proposal was to remove them from Hawaiian names. You said "Despite my position stated above...", but it sounds to me perfectly in line with what you said before; are you reading it differently from me? KarlM 10:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess... Singularity 23:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

What about the fact that Hawaii is a US state (whether you like it or not), and the US government recognizes "Hawaii" as the official name of the state? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.25.3 (talk) 15:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That should be a side note in mention, as the federal government doesn't register such marks for any place names. Even the registered official motto of Hawaiʻi—in Hawaiian ("Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono")—is stripped of everything in official federal registry ("Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono"), which makes poor linguistic sense. What you speak of is rather hypertechnical (not to mention grossly insensitive), and even the Hawaiʻi state government has already begun using "Hawaiʻi" and full Hawaiian spellings for words and names of Hawaiian language origin in its own English language documents. Even the names of Hawaiʻi state government buildings are changing to spell it "Hawaiʻi". The fact of the matter is, the federal government doesn't register diacritics or breathing marks for any place names, even for Spanish place names in New Mexico (where Spanish is co-official) or French place names in Louisiana (where French is co-official). So, this doesn't mean that the diacritics don't exist nor are actively used, but that the federal government doesn't register names in anything but the 26 letters (LAUPAHOEHOE, LAIE, KAPAA, KANEOHE, etc.). I'm not sure they even register spaces or dashes either, or they collate them as absent when checking against existing registered names for duplicates (KAILUAKONA, CAPTAINCOOK, etc.), though I'm not certain this is the case. (States cannot have more than one locality of the same registered name, and various Hawaiʻi locality names have been changed in official registration to make them distinct from other places in the state of similar or the same name, such as the multiple places named Kailua or Waimea, though in those two particular examples they are spelled the same even in Hawaiian.) And I've been told that even this will probably change in the near future. - Gilgamesh 09:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm impressed with the Irish example, as I think the Ireland may be analogous to Hawaii in a number of ways (island politically long dominated by English-speaking group, to the point where previous language is close to extinguised, latter to experience a resurgence on the winds of local pride/nationalism...I'm sure there are many disanalogies to be found by experts on Hawaii and Ireland, but that's the naive glimpse of a non-local:). Let me try to parse a piece of the Irish convention into the Hawaii/English debate:

Where the English and Irish names are the same or very nearly the same, but the English and Irish spellings differ, use the English spelling.

• Example 1: Rosmuck, not Ros Muc.
• Example 2: Inishmore, not Inis Mór.

Where the English and Hawaiian names are the same or very nearly the same, but the English and Hawaiian spellings differ, use the English spelling.

• Example 1: Hawaii, not Hawaiʻi.
• Example 2: Lihue, not Līhuʻe.

Where the English and Irish names are different, and the English name remains the predominant usage in English, use the English name.

• Example: Wicklow, not Cill Mhantáin.

Where the English and Hawaiian names are different, and the English name remains the predominant usage in English, use the English name.

• Example: Pearl Harbor, not Pu'uloa.

Where the English and Irish names are different, and the Irish name is the official name, but has not yet gained favour in English usage, use the English name.

• Example: Newbridge, not Droichead Nua.

Where the English and Hawaiian names are different, and the Hawaiian name is the official name, but has not yet gained favour in English usage, use the English name.

• Example: ?????, not ??????.

Where the English and Irish names are different, and the Irish name is the official name, and has gained favour in English usage, use the official Irish name.

• Example: Muinebeag, not Bagenalstown.

Where the English and Hawaiian names are different, and the Hawaiian name is the official name, and has gained favour in English usage, use the official Irish name.

• Example: Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, not City of Refuge National Historical Park.

Erudy 21:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be forgetting that Hawaiʻi formal English use has already steadily been using full Hawaiian spellings everywhere. Hell, even as a child, I was always admonished not to use simplified spellings, but to use the ʻokina wherever it is found. Muʻumuʻu. ʻUkulele. Kāneʻohe. Kapiʻolani. Oʻahu. Hawaiʻi. I in fact, speaking my native language English, was born in Kapiʻolani Medical Center, Honolulu, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. That's not pedantism. That's practice. And it's proper and educated. - Gilgamesh 00:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, the spelling is the same, the only difference is the accent marks. Inishmore vs. Inis Mór is not equivalent to Hawaii vs. Hawaiʻi. There's no confusion over whether they're the same, and in contrast to the former case where Irish spelling could be misleading because the pronunciation of letters is different from English ("s" is pronounced "sh"), putting the okina in the Hawaiian word tells you how to pronounce it correctly. If the dispute was between Inis Mór and Inis Mor, it would unquestionably go with the former. You might also want to refer to WP:NC:disputes, which found a majority (though not a consensus) generally in favor of using diacritics. Because it's not a consensus I don't think we should be starting a campaign to wholesale go through and change every page, but it most certainly doesn't support taking them out of pages that have them. KarlM 10:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Erudy has good points about the Irish comparison. English Wikipedia only uses the Irish names where they have eclipsed the English ones. Hawaiian diacritics are used in some cases but, even in Hawaiian usage, it's not the majority. See Talk:Waikiki for a researched example. "Putting the okina in the Hawaiian word tells you how to pronounce it correctly" only if you are familiar with Hawaiian. It is correct Hawaiian but not correct English. The okina/macron Hawaiian names can and should be presented in the first sentence but it is not appropriate for the title where diacritic usage is pædantic, prescriptive, a violation of WP:UE, and/or possibly original research. — AjaxSmack 03:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

This is getting foolish. Looking something up in a dictionary is not original research; putting the okina in the word tells you how to pronounce it if you're not familiar with Hawaiian, because if you are then you don't need it; and the accusation that those who want to include diacritics are pedants sounds rather ironic coming from someone who wants to follow the Wikipedia rules to the letter despite WP:IAR (in particular, see number 2 in the first section). As for the Irish MOS, there are two relevant sections to point out:

• Conversely, when the Irish version of a name is more common and recognised by English speakers, prefer the Irish name for the article name, and mention any English name in the body of the article.
• The síneadh fada (or acute accent) should be used when Irish spelling requires it; thus "Mary Robinson (Máire Mhic Róibín)", not "Mary Robinson (Maire Mhic Roibin)".

The Hawaiian names are used for virtually everywhere in Hawaiʻi, with a few exceptions like Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head, so following the Irish example would mean including diacritics in Hawaiian place names. KarlM 13:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I fail to understand the opposition to using ʻokina and kahakō. It does seem to be getting foolish. I am 27 years old and born Hawaiʻi and this usage in English has always been 100% orthodox to me. Even when I was a teenager, and I noticed one of my handwritten church records listed my birthplace as "Honolulu, Hawaii", I cheerfully admonished my bishop about the misspelling, and he gladly wrote in the ʻokina changing it to "Honolulu, Hawaiʻi". With real lifetime experiences like these (and I suspect of many other educated individuals), to call the educated consistent use of ʻokina and kahakō "pedantic" or "original research" is at best very rude, and at worst a grave insult to lifetimes of orthodox educated intelligence, not to mention at least somewhat hurtful. On the contrary, this idea of systematically removing ʻokina and kahakō seems obsessive at best, and at worst extremely prescriptionist. If I recall, Wikipedia does have a policy of not systematically prescribing between valid variations of spelling conventions such as theater/theatre, harbor/harbour, maneuver/manoeuvre, program/programme, etc. The frequent use of ʻokina and kahakō may indeed not be nearly as common outside Hawaiʻi and Hawaiʻi-born people as it is among them, but it is no less valid and orthodox and correct among them, even if a degree of free variation within Hawaiʻi is tolerated. When it comes to what is educated, I am more likely to be influenced by the standards of the University of Hawaiʻi than by Hawaii Five-O. - Gilgamesh 01:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should be accurate and informed in its titles, and that includes diacritics. I personally believe that all titles in Hawaiian should include diacritics because it is part of the written language, and trying to abolish the usage of the kahakō and ‘okina altogether is ridiculous. Singularity 08:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Aloha! Just my two cents, for whatever they are worth. The ʻokina should be INCLUDED in ANY Hawaiian word. The absence of the ʻokina and the kahakō can drastically change the meaning of a word. For example, the word kala means crayon, collar, to loosen, a type of fish, etc. However, kālā means dollar, currency, money, etc. The ʻokina and the kahakō MUST be included in the words in which they belong.Kanaka maoli i puuwai (talk) 02:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Gilgamesh, Singularity, and Kanaka maoli i puuwai and therefore oppose. The meaning of specific terms and the relations to other terms are essential for the semantic network in this project. The meaning of Hawaiian words depends from the spelling like explained by others in this discussion. (see also: „The presence or absence of glottal stops and macrons changes both pronunciation and meaning, …“ (S. 226); „I call particular attention to the symbols for two important elements in the spoken language: the glottal stop (reversed apostrophe) and lengthened, stressed vowels (macron). Without these symbols in the written language, pronunciation of a great many Hawaiian words cannot be determined – nor, it follows, can their meanings be accurately deciphered.“(S. VI): Mary Kawena Pūkui, Samuel H. Elbert: New pocket Hawaiian dictionary. With a concise grammar and given names in Hawaiian. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1996, ISBN 0-8248-1392-8) However the fact should be taken into consideration, that the use of ʻokina and kahakō seems to be more and more accepted by federal government officials (see my note about Geographic Names and the Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 (S. 939)). One may also refer to the maps and tourbooks of the AAA. The Hawaiʻi map (11/06-2/08) and the Hawaiʻi TourBook (2007 edition) use ʻokina and kahakō a lot, although often with mistakes. --ThT (talk) 03:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)