The Hawaiian Alphabet Has Just 13 Letters

The Hawaiian alphabet is one of the shortest writing systems in the world, containing just 13 letters. That's less than half the number in the English alphabet, yet it's perfectly capable of expressing the rich and poetic Hawaiian language known as ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.

These 13 letters consist of five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and eight consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and ʻ). Wait—that funny apostrophe-looking mark is a letter? Absolutely. It's called the ʻokina, and it represents a glottal stop, the same sound you make in the middle of "uh-oh." Without it, you'd completely change the meaning of words. For example, pau means "finished," but paʻu means "skirt."

How Did Hawaiian Get So Short?

Before the 1820s, Hawaiian had no written form—it was a purely oral language passed down through chants, stories, and songs. When American missionaries arrived, they set about creating a writing system so they could translate the Bible into Hawaiian.

The missionaries initially experimented with more letters, but in 1826, they made a crucial decision: eliminate redundant characters. Many sounds that exist in English simply don't exist in Hawaiian, so letters like B, C, D, F, G, J, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Y, and Z got the axe. The result was an elegant 13-letter alphabet that perfectly captured the sounds of the language.

Why Hawaiian Sounds So Musical

With so few consonants, Hawaiian words tend to have a rhythmic, vowel-heavy flow. Nearly every syllable ends in a vowel, creating that melodic quality you hear in words like Honolulu, mahalo, and aloha. This structure also means Hawaiian has far fewer possible syllable combinations than English—making it relatively easier to pronounce once you know the basics.

The flip side? Hawaiian has lots of homophones—words that sound identical but have different meanings. Context becomes everything. The word mana alone can refer to spiritual power, a branch, or a type of food, depending on usage and surrounding words.

The Alphabet's Cultural Importance

Today, the Hawaiian language is experiencing a revival after nearly dying out in the 20th century. The simple 13-letter alphabet makes it accessible for new learners, though mastering the ʻokina and the kahakō (a macron that lengthens vowel sounds) takes practice. These tiny marks aren't just decorative—they're essential to proper pronunciation and meaning.

So yes, you can express an entire language with just 13 letters. Hawaiian proves that sometimes less truly is more—especially when every letter carries weight and every sound tells a story.