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Diacritical mark: a mark placed over, under, alongside or attached to a letter to indicate pronunciation, stress, or other value. The kahakô (also called mekona for macron) and the `okina (glottal stop) are diacritical marks which make the proper pronunciation and meanings of many Hawaiian words possible, especially for the beginning student.The kahakô indicates that the vowel sound is to be elongated. The `okina indicates a break in the breath, as in "Oh-oh!"Unfortunately, to date, these diacritical marks are neither universally, nor uniformly available on the Internet. In its true form, the kahakô is a line directly above the vowel and the `okina is an up-side-down apostrophe (also described as "a little 6 with the circle colored in").
The `okina is considered a consonant. Just as you would never drop essential consonants in your spelling (ear for dear, for example), do not drop the `okina. It is well-depicted with a " ` ", which precedes vowels with `okina:`a, `e, `i, `o,` u. An easy depiction of the kahakô is still, however, not universally available on the Internet.On PC-written net documents, the closest approximation that I have seen for a kahakô is a caret [kahr et']. Myself, I refer to it as the pâpale (hat or a cap) over the vowel. For example: â. To obtain these letters with kahakô on my desktop PC*, I hold down the "Alt" key, then strike the number code in sequence, using the NUMERIC (calculator-type) KEYPAD on the right side of the keyboard -- with the Number Lock "on". DO NOT use the row of number keys above the alphabet keys; they will not work for this purpose. |
