Hawaiian alphabet

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 18th century by American missionaries to print a bible in the Hawaiian language.

Origins

In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported European discovery of 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. The original alphabet included five vowels and twelve consonants:

and seven diphthongs:

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.