Editing Polynesian languages (section)

==Orthography==
Written Polynesian languages use orthography based on [[Latin script]]. Most Polynesian languages have five [[Vowel#Articulation|vowel qualities]], corresponding roughly to those written ''i, e, a, o, u'' in classical [[Latin]]. However, orthographic conventions for [[phoneme]]s that are not easily encoded in standard Latin script had to develop over time. Influenced by the traditions of orthographies of languages they were familiar with, the missionaries who first developed orthographies for unwritten Polynesian languages did not explicitly mark phonemic vowel length or the [[glottal stop]]. By the time that [[linguists]] trained in more modern methods made their way to the Pacific, at least for the major languages, the [[Bible]] was already printed according to the orthographic system developed by the missionaries, and the people had learned to read and write without marking vowel length or the [[glottal stop]].

This situation persists in many languages. Despite efforts at reform by local academies, the general conservative resistance to orthographic change has led to varying results in Polynesian languages, and several writing variants co-exist. The most common method, however, uses a [[Macron (diacritic)|macron]] to indicate a long vowel, while a vowel without that diacritical mark is short, for example, '''ā''' versus '''a'''.  Sometimes, a long vowel is instead written double, e.g. ''Maaori''.

The [[glottal stop]] (not present in all Polynesian languages, but, where present, one of the most common [[consonants]]) is indicated by an [[apostrophe]], for example, '''<nowiki/>'a''' versus '''a'''.  Hawaiʻian uses the '''[[ʻokina]]''', also called by [[ʻokina#Names|several other names]], a [[Unicase|unicameral]] [[consonant]] letter used within the [[Latin script]] to mark the [[phoneme|phonemic]] [[glottal stop]]. It is also used in many other Polynesian languages, each of which has its own name for the character. Apart from the ʻokina or the somewhat similar Tahitian ʻeta, a common method is to change the simple apostrophe for a curly one, taking a normal apostrophe for the elision and the inverted comma for the [[glottal stop]]. The latter method has come into common use in Polynesian languages.