Distance Learning Tip of the Week – Enable Hawaiian diacritics on your device, add to Autocorrect

The Hawaiian language has two diacritical marks: the ʻokina (glottal stop) and vowels with kahakō (macron). These marks create special characters that provide information on word meaning and pronunciation. There are several approaches to correctly inserting Hawaiian diacritics into documents and webpages.

Mac and PC users can install the Hawaiian language keyboard on their device following the steps outlined by UH ITS in Hawaiian Diacritics.

Microsoft Word users may opt to add to their Autocorrect list using this list of Hawaiian words, which includes handy keystroke shortcuts, or a longer word list found under Additional Hawaiian Language Tools. Google Docs users can also add words with glyphs to Autocorrect. See Hawaiian Diacritics.

In Google Docs, add Hawaiian diacritics to a document from the Insert menu > Special Characters. In the search bar, type in hex codes for Hawaiian diacritics (U+hex code number). See Hawaiian Diacritics for a table of hex codes.

For tips on adding diacritical marks when working in HTML, see UH West Oahuʻs Brand Identity advice in ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i.