Hawaiian alphabet

The Hawaiian alphabet, called ka pī‘āpā Hawai‘i in Hawaiian, the variety of the Roman alphabet created in the 19th century used to write the Hawaiian language, consists of 12 letters and a symbol, making it one of the shortest alphabets in the world (Rotokas alphabet has one letter less). The letters are a, e, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, u, and w. A glottal stop is indicated by an opening single quote mark: ‘. A macron, called kahakō in Hawaiian, can be placed above any of the vowels, which indicates that stress alternates between syllables.

For example, the word "Hawaii" in its proper form appears as Hawai‘i.

There are 162 possible syllables in Hawaiian, the fewest of any language.