Hawaiian alphabet

The Hawaiian alphabet consists of 12 letters, making it the shortest alphabet in the world. The letters are a, e, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, u, and w. A macron can be placed above any of the vowals, which indicates that stress alternates between syllables. A glottal stop is indicated by this mark: `

For example, the word Hawaii in its proper form appears as Hawai`i.

There are 162 possible syllables in Hawaiian, the fewest of any language.

Native Hawaiians had no written language. History and heritage was passed from generation to generation via story telling in form of hula dances or verbally. In the early 19th century Christian missionaries developed a written form of the native language. The missionaries banned hula dances for many years, hence many old tales were lost.