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The faithful 'okina (not an apostrophe)

The article needs discussion of the use both of Hawai'i and of Hawai'ian, even if one or both are wrong in English. Just using the right forms without clarifying the natural confusion invites the reader to suppose *we* are confused, and waste time searching for a source that acknowledges the existence of the confused version. I doubt this is really an NPOV problem, but it is worth dealing with in the same terms of "more information, including about the fact of the erroneous view, is better than less information". (Yes, there is such a thing as too much info in one article, but the solution is to refactor the excess -- maybe precisely the addition i'm asking for -- into a stub, and link to it; later, it will get expanded or refactored together with something else, when this article has been expanded and refactored into 10. If it's needed here, consider Hawaii vs. Hawai'i or Hawai'i-related terms or Hawai'i and Hawaiian).

Are Hawai'i & Hawaii pronounced alike (or as close as is reasonable to expect in languages with different phoneme sets) but just spelled differently in the 2 languages? Are we missing the point in using "Hawai'i" when talking abt the islands and the kingdom but "Hawaii" for the state? (And was i right or wrong in assuming that the statehood documents say "Hawaii"?) --Jerzy 05:13, 2003 Nov 10 (UTC)

Oh, and Hawai'ian people, and Hawai'ian have usage that seems inconsistent within the pages. --Jerzy 05:22, 2003 Nov 10 (UTC)

They are not necessarily pronounced the same, only because most mainlanders do not know how to pronounce Hawai'i; but they are similar. The fact is, the place is Hawai'i not Hawaii, although I realize the latter is what most persons in the other 49 and beyond are used to. I'm not sure of the value of perpetuating ignorance about something, but you are right, many documents will list Hawai'i as Hawaii and the intro paragraph that someone added about the two ways of spelling it is a reasonably correct way of putting it (Hawaii in most of US, but correct and will of the State is Hawai'i). There is no word Hawai'ian - at least I've never seen anyone use that form, and English grammatical rules may or may not require it. The 'okina (') is a mark of pronunciation and would not really be appropriate in "Hawaiian". The fact is, the US is changing, and seeing others point of view is becoming a necessity. To not recognize the local (therefore correct) form of spelling is to in effect declare Hawai'i and Hawaiians foreigners not deserving of our respect of their place that is now part of the U.S. This is always a problem in geography. Do we call it "Baja California" or "Lower California"? The latter is correct in English. Can Wikipedia afford to declare itself an American/Whites/English only effort, or should it seek the best knowledge about each place it presents? This problem is the same for any place outside of the U.S. where a place name is locally in a non-English language, but must have special consideration within the U.S. where Hawaiian is now a U.S. language.

It is not an apostrophe. It is a glottal stop in English, and is correctly written thus `, but is best rendered in Wikipedia as ' (as are single quotes, apostrophes, etc.). I see no need for such an article, except perhaps included somewhere on the Hawaiian language page. After all, it is not an issue requiring debate so much as standardization. I would argue it goes to how Wikipedia wants to have itself perceived by other peoples. Were it a matter of creating confusing terminology (as for example giving the English and Arrapajo names for a place), I would say handle it by providing both terms together -- Hawai'i (Hawaii). But unlike most foreign languages, witten Hawaiian came from U.S. missionaries, and therefore utilizes our letters, with the addition of two grammatical marks. These DO make a difference, since many words are spelled the same way, and the pronunciation is what separates the meanings. I can give some thought to what you say by way of a better explanation either on the State page or under Hawaiian language - Marshman 08:51, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

(At 17:29, 2003 Nov 10 Wik editted Hawaii & summarized "(this is an English encyclopaedia, so we use the English version, not the Hawaiian)" )--Jerzy 20:49, 2003 Nov 10 (UTC)

Wik - sorry I disagree, Place names are often exceptions to that rule and Hawaii is part of the US. The place names are place names, so they become English words by being part of a US culture. I see no consistent application of any rule that English is how all place names are to be rendered (see Baja California = not English). In fact it would be crazy to translate all place names beyond a certain gross geographic level to their English meanings (it is just not done). In effect, you are being disrespectful to the Hawaiian culture to change these names to some mainland standard that is not even adhered to for foreign countries. - Marshman 17:46, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm not saying we should translate things that aren't commonly translated. What we should use is the name most commonly used in English. That can be tested with Google. Baja California is called just that:

"state of Baja California" - 3,180

"state of Lower California" - 9

But Hawaii is Hawaii:

"state of Hawaii" - 280,000

"state of Hawai'i" - 21,000

(The addition "state of" is used to search only English texts.) You will also find "STATE OF HAWAII" on the state seal, etc. It is definitely the correct English version. --Wik 19:15, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

(The following response to Marshman does not yet reflect my reading of Wik's response.)

Thank you, i find this very helpful. (And that is now the 'okina key on my keyboard, since i was exposed in utero [wink] to a defective ASCII table and can never remember which is the accent grave and which the accent aigue.) I agree that Hawaiian language is likely to be the place for the most detailed coverage of this; IMO, a section heading like "Representing Hawai`i's Language within English Text" would be ideal (if only links could support use of the kahako there), and given the given, "Representing Hawaiian Language within English Text" is pretty good. Hopefully at some point, hovering the cursor over, say,

Hawai'i (original and local name)

will display both the article name and section name; until then, i assume an interim page named Representing Hawaiian Language within English Text with a redirect to Hawaiian language#Representing Hawaiian Language within English Text must do nearly everything that i wish the indented one would.

I would suggest, if as you suggest there are some known problems (beyond links) with using the true 'okina, that, whether it is used in text or the apostrophe substituted, in the place we are discussing, it be

• described with both
  • the name of the similar-appearing French mark and
  • its position on the most popular keyboards in English-speaking countries, namely, "on the same key with the tilde, usually to the left of the key bearing the digit one and the exclamation point", and
• demonstrated with a very small graphic showing one or two words, that together demonstrate them both in use. (Would 'okina and kahakō be a confusing choice? Hardly, since i now realize that each has an example of the mark it names.)

(Note that the graphic is immune to all problems other than lack of graphics on the user's browser or terminal.)

As to "the value of perpetuating ignorance", i'd be glad to clarify that: the only alternative is propagating even more ignorance. (I can't help myself from mentioning the portion i caught of last nite's broadcast of the PBS "Dr. Zhivago", which includes the shocking breach of good taste of having a desperate and suicidal Strelnikov reveal his earlier hope for a society "where innocence and virtue would be compulsory".) The de-perpetuation of ignorance proceeds one mind at a time, and all too often one death-by-old-age at a time. "The margin of this book is not big enough" for me to record all the reasons i can think of why recording the existence of ignorance is more valuable than ignoring it, but one is that each of our users does have a life ("Even you, Mrs. Lovett, even i!"), and all of those lives impose priorities that are different from yours and mine, let alone from the right priorities. Fighting ignorance is a calling much like herding cats, and them pussy-cats is quick.

On the National Archives and Records Administration Web-site, over a thousand documents mention "Hawaii" but not "Hawai'i" or "Hawai`i". Two others include a total of 3 occurences of "Hawai'i" (along with more numerous instances of "Hawaii"), once each in:

1. "Hawai'i Maritime Center"
2. the Maritime Centers' description of its documents pertaining to the island of Hawai'i
3. "Kingdom of Hawai'i".

All three of these are instances where someone else than the Archives had the authority to name itself or its own work product.

You assert that "will of the State is" to be called "Hawai'i". While i hate to put it this way, you are simply dead wrong, for two reasons.

1. The will of a State is set by its legislative branch, and carried out (or in limited spheres set) by its Governor. I want to go naked everywhere, whenever the weather permits, but other forms of freedom are more important to me, so my will is almost never to be naked. The State of Hawaii may want its name to be "Hawai`i", but it has not willed it, for reasons most of which i am ignorant of.
2. States of the US do not have the authority to change their own names, tho presumably they could in theory get Congress to do it for them. North Dakota can't even change its name to "Dakota" (as it says it wants to do). (Contrast this with the two countries in Africa that have both carried the name "Republic of Congo" at the same time, and been identified by putting their respective capital cities in parentheses after the name. They are sovereign, and when you're sovereign you can do even utterly stubborn and stupid things. Hawaii's (and e.g., New York's) sovereignty are nearly negligible.)

You probably would admit to meaning that the people of the State of Hawaii will that, which is not dead wrong, but is a silly way to put it, because a person barely has a will, and no group of even two people has a single will, no matter how good a job they do of making their separate wills coincide for long periods of time.

There are plausible things that you could mean by that statement, but they are all irrelevant, since only ones the vague, useless ones are practical to verifying, so IMO the statement is nothing more than a mystical slogan, and out of place here.

I favor bringing forward the information that

there are facts that are likely to be seen as supporting the broadening English usage with a preference for "Hawai`i" over "Hawaii" in the places other than those, like "State of Hawai'i" where it is an error of fact.

(I wish the irrelevance here of what i am about to say were recognized, but that won't stop me from revealing that i hope the name becomes more widely used for the island and the kingdom, and even the island group (whether or not that was traditional before the monarchy). I hope that cushions whatever offense i am giving to those who feel even more strongly than i about the kahako; i hope that both bcz it's a shame for people to go around offended, and bcz i fear it could interfere with decision making on this, and otherwise with our work here.)

Finally: the following is not a proposal by me, bcz my POV is that this discussion is largely driven by a POV that puts far too much significance on the kahako, and will be distracting. However, i recognize the need to reflect that NPOV might be better served not by my own proposal, but by one i can imagine. To wit: Hawaii needs a state article, and this is it, and IMO that limits parts of the article. There is also a need for articles (Long Island (New York,Florida keys, and Upper Peninsula are just the most obvious ones for very or fairly definable regions more natural than most states' boundaries. (Hawaii is uniquely "natural" as a state in having no boundaries that one can stand on the ground and straddle.) IMO, it would do very little harm and quite possibly more good, for most of what is in Hawaii now to be refactored into Hawai'i (island group), with most of the rest going into Hawaii (state). Hawaii (state) needs to get the whole table (to match the other state articles) and the info about state elective and appointive offices and state gov't programs, but almost everything but the intro and sections 3 and part of 6 can be go into Hawai'i (island group) without duplication. IMO only the standard state table should necessarily be excluded from Hawai'i (island group) (bcz it would probably be confusing). Of course there should be links back and forth between them, perhaps multiple ones to sections. (I've no vision of whether Hawaii would end up a significant article or a very spare disamb page.) --Jerzy 20:28, 2003 Nov 10 (UTC)

Actually, I'm unclear about everything you are saying (or even if you are sympathetic), but maybe after rereadings it will become clear to me. However, I can answer a couple of your questions right off. There are two articles already that speak to the State vs. Place concept: Hawaii = State and Hawaiian Islands = place. Probably all you suggest can be accommodated within those. I have already tried to split text up pretty much along the lines you are suggesting.

As to the use of Hawaiian for place names, it seems inconsistent to use the old English versions at lower geographic levels (streams, beaches, local places, towns, counties) as this is a requirement not even placed on foreign countries/locations. However, in the State (and possibly island) articles, both terms could and probably should be included along with some clarification (which I already added to the Hawaii article. I've not been so bold as to change any article name to one with diacritical marks. - Marshman 22:36, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I can give you one reason why there is far fewer pages from Google that have Hawai'i vs. Hawaii on the web. This impacts on all the reports I and others prepare here locally (in Hawai'i): Correct Hawaiian spelling requires the use of both the macron (Kahakō) and the glottal stop ('okina). If you can believe it (I can) MS Word has no provision for putting macrons on letters in any of their American symbol sets. There are work-arounds, but they are not known by most and are difficult to apply. One way is to purchase special Hawaiian font sets to have the macrons, but these come out not as macrons (usually as umlauts) once the file is transferred to another computer without the font set. The result is, that most people must decide if they are going to spell the place names correctly, or use the old "American" versions. Without access to the macrons, they rightfully opt not to do a partial effort (just 'okinas which are easy to represent); an umlauted letter looks ugly as a representation of Hawaiian. I'm not trying to promote a POV here (even if it is my POV), but to help educate Wikipedia users to the fact that the world is a lot bigger than the continental US. - Marshman 22:50, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

M, Jerzy here; i think you've got a reasonable grip on my attitude, since you are unsure if i'm sympathetic [smile]. I think i'm the guy in the middle between you and Wik, in that i support putting the `okina in HI as primary for the place, but HI w/o `okina as primary for HI the governmental entity. Just to be sure it's not a shock to you later, i'll go further than i think really matters & tell you i probably favor less of a secondary role for HI-with-'okina (re the state) than for HI-w/o (for the place). (But i do need to go see what each of you reverted from and to, before i'm clear where either of you stands exactly.)

As to H'n Isl's, i think that except in geology that is not the natural description; i've never heard a haole (sp?) say they were going on vacation to "the H'n Isl's", but rather to HI, and IMO they mean the place bcz they say HI much as they would Cancun or Venice.

In case either you or Wik is unfamiliar with moving pages, i've done some and am not frightened at the thot of, e.g.,

• moving H'n Isl's to HI-with-`okina (carrying its history along),
• moving HI-w/o to HI-w/o (state) (carrying along that history),
• creating a new, history-less HI-w/o for disambig, and
• creating a new H'n Isl's to maybe take the geology from the current HI.

However, i wouldn't undertake that w/o better agreement on where we're headed, since proper reversion of moves can be non-trivial (and can require, IIRC, significant time of a developer (not a sysop)) --Jerzy 01:08, 2003 Nov 11 (UTC)

W, Jerzy here; it is in general important anyway to not rely blindly on Google searches as "opinion surveys", since the Web gives disproportionate weight to the uninformed and the careless. It also is nearly worthless when a cultural or national difference is involved, and what Marshman describes is exactly the sort of garbage-out that you should have expected.

IMO, he is also right that how HI residents spell it is of special importance; we should be especially interested in those Web sites, if we could ID them. And while i think that Hawaiian residence is far too much of a minority (abt a million out of nearly 300 million Yanks) to expect even the consideration that Spanish gets on English-speaking-country speakers basis, IMO the fact that all or virtually all of these people are fluent in English makes Hawaiian far from just a "foreign" language & more like a dialect of American English. (If Wiki isn't enuf to convince us of that, Akamai (the on-demand server mavens) and DaKine (the snow-board mavens) should.) So it's much easier to accommodate. --Jerzy 01:08, 2003 Nov 11 (UTC)

• Not sure all those page changes are needed. I've never been a fan of "separate but equal" as way to solve anything. I think having the State Page under Hawaii (which is where it is now) is fine. I can rework to have the entry start something like this:" Hawaii (as Hawai'i locally) is a state...blah blah blah." That is fine with me. If there is real concern beyond trouble-making here, that Island names need be also treated in that way, I have no problem (Oahu is still the page, although in my POV it should be O'ahu). I've not made any attempt to make such article name changes and would not (reason below). Beyond the State and Island pages, the other sites, locations, towns, etc. really should follow what they are in Hawai'i, although again, I'm not interested in having diacritical marks in article names. Makes them too problematical to track down, and first choice should always be to avoid a Redirect page if possible. There is not much geology in the current Hawaii; it is already in Hawaiian Islands. It is likely there will be a separate page for the History of Hawaii some day, as much expansion of what is there now is needed.

Actually, I have no idea what Wik wants other than what seem at this point like an ad hominum edit away from any reality beyond what tourists think of Hawai'i. Or maybe he is an English teacher. I really do not know. The example of Baja (Spanish) is just one I found quickly. The fact is, that place names ARE in English up to a point for countries, states, large cities; but after that, local names prevail. That seems like the only reasonable and intelligent treatment for English Wikipedia. I'm not interested in having Hawai'i treated any differently. - Marshman 01:48, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well, we agree then: Hawaii is a state, so we should use English. I'll ignore your strange comments about tourists and English teachers. --Wik 02:14, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

Jerzy wrote: IMO, he is also right that how HI residents spell it is of special importance; we should be especially interested in those Web sites, if we could ID them.

Actually, Jerzy, good luck, because even our own state government is far from consistent on the issue. Our state government portal is pretty consistently 'okina-less, but if you go to the UH and state Dept of Education websites, you'll see examples of both 'okina'd and 'okina-less HI on the same page. Even the OHA webpage isn't entirely consistent throughout, and you'd think that if any government agency would insist on using 'okina'd HI consistently, it would be OHA. (Well, so much for M's argument that the will of the state is to use the 'okina, 'cause it seems our own government can't get its ducks in row.)

Even our two daily newspapers use two different stylebooks. The Advertiser consistently uses 'okinas where appropriate, while the Star-Bulletin leaves them out.

My two cents: I was born and raised here and went through the school system, so I know what purpose the 'okina and kahako play in the Hawaiian language. (For the record, I'm of Japanese descent.) But, at the same time, in grade school I was never told that HI should be spelled with or without the 'okina. I've seen it spelled both ways. I've spelled it both ways and been understood, but I tend not to use the 'okina very often myself (probably because it's too much effort to make that tick mark, or reach my right pinky over to the right...you know how lazy we locals are.)  :)

As for W's argument that we should use English rather than the local language...well, yeah, I can understand us using Florence instead of Firenze, Moscow instead of Moskva, and Munich instead of München. When it comes to Hawaii vs. Hawai'i, however, the line is very blurry because the only spelling difference is the glottal stop between the two I's that (I would guess) most people would unconsciously insert, written out or not.

My point is this: In HI, you will see the name spelled with or without the 'okina. As long as you recognize that it refers to a group of islands located roughly at latitude 20 north and longitude 155 west, that's the important thing. But I do agree that (1) there needs to be some consensus here as to which form to use, on this page and others dealing with HI, and (2) whichever one we finally agree on, that there be some acknowledgment of the alternate spelling, somewhere within these pages. --KeithH 09:24, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you, K, that the ease of recognizing familiar English forms despite the `okina & kahako undercut the arguement that "it's a foreign language" even more than the fact that Hawaiian is native to US and so many of its speakers are fluently bilingual and thus busy erasing the boundary.

If there's interest, i'll gather here more (and more than i suspected!) about states' names and control over their names.

Firenze, etc. -- i dunno, maybe i'm jaded; the only thing that really burns me is using German tourist maps in Italy, & never being able to remember what "Venezia" means in German (except that it's not "Venice"!)[grin] --Jerzy 11:02, 2003 Nov 12 (UTC)

I think KeithH put it accurately — although I'd caution on considering the State government here as having any kind of consistent handle on anything. My own websites are not consistent either, for the reason that I just learned how to do the kahakō since coming to Wikipedia. I plan to change those to be consistent. As for the word "will" that I used, that was not the right term, clearly. I think it is a fact that if one goes back 20-30 years, there was very little interest at most levels of society here in using the Hawaiian Language for anything; but that as since changed. Of course not all are on the same page, but interest in using authentic names for places is now quite strong and that is what I meant by "will" ("consensis direction" conveys what I meant). Even the City/County of Honolulu is changing street signs over to proper use of 'okina and kahakō (all County streets with few exceptions 'must' be "in" Hawaiian - that is, must be Hawaiian words). My feeling is you cannot translate everything to English. The proper way to do that would be use the English word and not the Hawaiian word for a place (example: O'ahu would become "Gathering Place"). Of course this is too extreme for commonly used place names like Hawaii and Oahu. But for lesser known place names, it is questionable whether it is a Hawaiian word or an English "misspelled" version that is being applied. I would argue in these cases, it is a misspelled word. For example, the place Nā Pōhaku — should we put it down as "Many Rocks" as that is the English equivalent? Or simply misspell it as 'Na Pohaku' (English "of the master darkness [does not translate]" ? - Marshman 17:42, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hey! not nice!

It seems that in all the places where Hawaii/Hawai'i was given in two versions, one with 'okina and one without, Jerzy has taken the 'okina out of the 'okina'd version. I thought that doing the names in two versions was a *good compromise*. But it looks to me as if Jerzy wants to play edit war.

I'm enough of a newbie not to know how to revert, but I hope someone does.

BTW, I always spell it as Hawai'i. But I'm OK with the two versions.

Zora 19:59, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Noted and agreed with. I think I've consistently stated that both forms are used. I've also pointed out that movement in English is to Hawai‘i. Neither of those are POV. I suppose what one's preference is would be POV (everybody has a POV, so in this resect the whole NPOV thing is on shaky ground). Although I'd have no problem with putting Hawai‘i (Hawaii) where appropriate—or Hawaii (Hawai‘i); the facts are that the place is Hawai‘i and the standard English is "Hawaii". But place names seem to be regularly departed from at Wikipedia (as everywhere else in English) in favor of the direction in which the language is changing, largely out of respect for the peoples that live in those places. Seems a bit stupid and spiteful to insist on dual renderings at every mention of the word. I would hope Jerzy can be reasoned with - Marshman 21:03, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

May I draw a page from the manual of style on Japanese? "People who care about other romanization systems are knowledgeable enough to look after themselves." "[A]rticle titles must use short vowels and omit apostrophes ... since macrons are difficult to enter and proper use of apostrophes cannot be expected from people not familiar with Japanese." (Or, in this case, Hawaiian.) May I suggest that it be spelled 'Hawaii' in the article title (simply because, at present, the vast majority of people will be coming in on "Hawaii"), but have Hawai‘i be the form used in the text of the article? Then just truncate the opening description to "Hawai‘i (commonly spelled Hawaii)", and then leave the 'Naming conventions' paragraph pretty much as is. --Aponar Kestrel 05:22, 2004 Jul 27 (UTC)

I think I could agree with that. - Gilgamesh 05:46, 27 July 2004 (UTC)

My thought is that Hawaii should be used because that is the official spelling by the national government, the common spelling in the prevailing national language, and the common spelling in this English version of Wikipedia. The Hawaiian version of Wikipedia may have different conventions. Local conventions can be noted in the article. People wanting to use both terms in all occurrences might consider results of doing so in countries with many languages (India#Languages) or multilingual organizations (United Nations#Communications). I'm using Peking, Argentina and Rio de Janeiro as my examples: The english spelling only approximates the pronounciation by locals and the national government may sometimes announce a name change (or preferred spelling). (Local pronounciations of "Arrhentina" and "Hio" don't fully match the common english pronounciations of "Argentina" and "Rio". Peking#Names explains that word.) -- (SEWilco 14:58, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC))

I strongly (but respectfully) disagree with that, and the pronunciation examples are bad examples. In Hawaiian English, Hawai‘i is the Hawaiian language word used with complete Hawaiian spelling and pronunciation by the English speakers of the islands. They don't anglicize the spelling to accomplish a closer pronunciation; they don't spell it Havie-ee, they spell it Hawai‘i. Also, I don't believe the official spelling of the national government should apply to the place as a geographical and social entity; it is merely a political name, limited to State of Hawaii. (Note that I often reverted spellings back to "Hawaii" when it reflected the state name as an interpolitical entity, though not as an intrapolitical entity where "Hawai‘i" is preferred.) Also, I do not appreciate the perception of American mainland veto over such a naming issue that covers geography, society and community, just to impose a haole standard decided a century ago in Washington, D.C. after an illegal overthrow of Hawai‘i's self-rule. It stinks of Anglo-American hegemony and cultural imperialism over intercultural issues, if not international issues. Such militant name-changing would be like changing all references of East Turkistan or Uyghuristan to Xinjiang, or more notably, changing all references of Tibet or Bod to Xizang or other impositions of convention that local populations abhor. Should we now go to Tibet and change every single reference to Xizang, Mandarin Chinese for "west plateau"? If you accept a blanket imposition of "Hawaii", then such a move on other articles would also be necessary, but Western English-speaking culture happens to know enough more about Tibet to know that such a gesture would be incendiary at best. And the incendiary nature is all the same here, and will not (nor probably ever) go away. I do not understand this willing ignorance and contempt towards the social standards of Hawaiian English speakers. And I'm not talking specifically about Native Hawaiians here, as I am not one. I am talking about the vast majority of Hawai‘i's English speakers, including Native Hawaiians, Japanese Hawaiians, Korean Hawaiians, Filipino Hawaiians, Portuguese Hawaiians, and Hawai‘i-born American citizens who look no different from San Franciscans nor Bostonians. - Gilgamesh 06:13, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Use of Diacritical Marks are Codified in Law

While statehood documents do use the spelling Hawaii, various acts of the Hawai'i State Legislature and the 1978 Hawai'i State Constitutional Convention adopted the diacritical marks for official usage. Most recently, both major newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser and now even the Honolulu Star-Bulletin have made it official policy or just begun to use the diacritical marks. The same constitutional convention also adopted the Hawaiian language and the alphabet, including all diacritical marks, as the official language of the state. --Gerald Farinas 01:13, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

From the Hawai'i State Constitution.... Section 4. English and Hawaiian shall be the official languages of Hawaii, except that Hawaiian shall be required for public acts and transactions. --Gerald Farinas 18:51, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As per the constitutional excerpt above, official government business then shall use the Hawaiian language where prescribed by this and various other relative laws. --Gerald Farinas 18:58, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Comment on naming convention

My suggestion is use Hawaii or Hawai’i in the beginning of the header since both are correct. Then use the immensely more common spelling of Hawaii for the rest of the article with the exception of the section "Naming conventions:" that deals with this alternate spelling.
ex:
Hawaii or Hawai’i is the North Central Pacific Ocean archipelago of the Hawaiian Islands, constituting the 50th state of the United States. As of the 2000 Census, the population of the state was 1,211,537. Honolulu is the largest city and the state capital.

Buster 07:24, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

See a discussion on the same issue further up. In fact, these discussions have become so similar that maybe the entire sections should moved next to each other. Either that or the dead discussion threads moved to an archive page. - Gilgamesh 08:04, 28 July 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I read this talk page and was responding to "request for comment" on the WP:RfC page. Hence, I offer a suggestion as a nuetral in helping to reach a consensus. --Buster 09:35, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)