What ʻ means
It marks a brief catch in the throat inside a Hawaiian word. Your vocal cords close before the next sound; this is a consonant, not a pause.
Leaving it out makes the spelling incomplete and can change meaning. In the place name Hawaiʻi, ʻ separates the two i sounds.
It resembles ‘, but the Unicode Core Specification 17.0.0 treats modifier letters as part of words during text processing, unlike punctuation.
In Hawaiian, writing ʻokina where required shows care with a word’s spelling and pronunciation.
Replacing it with an opening quote can change the word.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
More like this
12
Collections with ʻ
3
How to type or find ʻ
- Also called
- ʻokina
- Search it as
- okina · Hawaiian apostrophe · glottal stop
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
Windows
HTML
ʻCSS
\02BBhow to type ʻokina
Linux: CtrlShiftU, type 02BB, then Enter.
Microsoft Word
In compatible Word apps, type 02BB, then press AltX.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ʻ
HTML hex
ʻ
CSS content
content: "\02BB";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%CA%BB
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
2
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.