Okina

Okina may refer to:

ʻOkina

The ʻokina, also called by several other names, is a unicameral consonant letter used within the Latin script to mark the phonetic glottal stop, as it is used in many Polynesian languages.

Names

Appearance

The ʻokina visually resembles a left single quotation mark—a small "6"-shaped mark above the baseline.

The Tahitian ʻeta has a distinct shape, like an ʻokina turned 90° or more clockwise.

Orthography and official status

The ʻokina is a letter in the Hawaiian alphabet. It is unicameral, unlike the other letters (all of which are basic Latin letters). For words that begin with an ʻokina, capitalization rules affect the next letter instead (for instance, at the beginning of a sentence, the name of the letter is written "ʻOkina", with a capital O).

Geographic names in the United States

The United States Board on Geographic Names lists relevant place names both with and without the ʻokina and kahakō in the Geographic Names Information System. Colloquially and formally, the forms have long been used interchangeably.