Hawaiian okina

[Clay McKell]

Can anyone suggest a proper way of typesetting the Hawaiian letter <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOkina">'okina</a>?

Right now, my workaround is to write Hawai$\!$`i ...i.e. shrink the
distance that LaTex wants to give the left quotation mark (grave
accent on my keyboard). This could also be done with an \mbox I
suppose, but the "slash-bang" hack works OK.

Any suggestions on a proper implementation?

Thanks,
Clay

[Tom Dye]

Hi Clay,

We've been using left quotation mark for years and haven't noticed a
problem. I've looked into this a few times and have never been able to
come up with a good idea of what the problem really is with the left
quotation mark.

So, my question is what makes a "proper implementation?"

All the best,
Tom
--
Tom Dye
T. S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists, Inc.
Honolulu, Hawai`i

[Clay McKell]

On Sep 29, 8:37 pm, Tom Dye <t...@tsdye.com> wrote:

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the reply.
Far from being an expert in Hawaiian language matters, it appears to
me that an 'okina occupies less horizontal space than Latex likes to
give quotation marks.
I suppose we can treat this as an authority on the subject:
http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/olelo/puana/okina.php
which says that left quotation marks are just fine.

[Tom Dye]

Thanks Clay, you've dispelled a nagging doubt I've had for years. I
should have thought to poke around the `olelo web pages at Hilo. If
you come up with a typesetting solution that looks superior, please
stay in touch. We're always looking for ways to improve production of
our reports.

[Peter Flynn]

For comparison:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{calc}
\newlength{\okinalen}
\setlength{\okinalen}{\widthof{'}}
\begin{document}
\noindent Hawai\hbox to.666\okinalen{\hss`\hss}i\\Hawai`i\\Hawai$\!$`i
\end{document}

///Peter

[Tom Dye]

Aloha Peter,

This is brilliant. In our case, seeing was believing. It was easy to
see that the first solution is superior.

Thanks!

[ric...@gmail.com]

Hi

I am also looking at a way of properly using the macron accent (the horizontal bar) over an "i" in latex... I would appreciate some help, as the usual \={i} will produce the macron over the dot of the 'i"...

Thanks...

[Axel Berger]

ric...@gmail.com wrote:
> the usual \={i}

\={\i}

Axel