arts & culture

The hawaiian alphabet is less than half the size of the English alphabet

With only 12 letters, the Hawaiian alphabet is less than half the size of the English alphabet, which consists of 26 letters. The twelve letters are A, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, and W. There are 5 vowels and 7 consonants. The written language was adopted from the English alphabet in the 1800s by American missionaries who wanted to print the bible in the Hawaiian language. While there are only 12 letters, there is also the symbol “Okina”, which looks like an apostrophe and is used frequently.

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