Havaii is one of a half dozen or so variant spellings of
Hawaii that can be found across all three points of
Polynesia. Havaii or Hawai'i refers to the ancient name for both
Ra'iatea
Raiatea or Ra'iatea ( Tahitian: ''Ra‘iātea'') is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the ...
and
Fakarava, both in French Polynesia. Common to all monarchial systems, island names changed by royal order or common assent, according to historic events. Other variants include
Savai'i,
Avaiki and
Hawaiki, with the names attaining a political as well as cultural significance in postcolonial times.
Usage
Unlike Hawai'i, Havai'i spelled with an
okina Okina may refer to:
* ʻOkina, a letter used in some Polynesian languages, visually resembling a left single quotation mark
* Okina () or , a character from the ''Rurouni Kenshin'' manga series
* Okina, Spain, a village in the Basque Country
* , ...
is simply a misspelling. Although "Hawaii" is the anglicized spelling used throughout the rest of the United States of America, Hawai'i, spelled with an okina between the Is, is the spelling used by most local Hawaiian people. An apostrophe is commonly used in the place of an okina, due to the lack of the symbol on most keyboards. Language workers also know this apostrophe is actually reversed, a glottal stop, signifying a verbal chop between vowels. Few web pages recognize this special character, with
Microsoft releasing a
Maori character font in 2003, although it does not address the
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
used by Maori outside of
Aotearoa
''Aotearoa'' () is the current Māori-language name for New Zealand. The name was originally used by Māori in reference to only the North Island, with the name of the whole country being ''Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu'' ("North Island and South ...
, New Zealand. Maori in
Avaiki,
Cook Islands, and in
Rapanui,
Easter Island;
Maohi :''"Maohi" can also refer to the indigenous people of French Polynesia, also known as Tahitians.''
In Tahiti and adjacent islands, the term Maohi (''Mā’ohi'' in Tahitian language) refers to the ancestors of the Polynesian peoples.
The term can ...
in
Tahiti and other parts of French Polynesia; and
Maoli in the islands of Hawai'i all treat consonants differently. Hawai'i, for example, originates centuries before in
Savai'i, the big island of
Samoa.
References
* Majesty King David Kalakaua (1888), ''The Legends and Myths of Hawaii'', Tuttle Co. Inc. 1888, 1972.
* {{cite web , url=https://www.kitv.com/story/31441842/hawaii-or-hawaii-whats-the-official-spelling , title=Hawaii or Hawai'i: What's the official spelling? , website=kitv.com , date=10 March 2016 , access-date=16 November 2020
Alternative place names
Geography of French Polynesia
Geography of Polynesia
History of Hawaii