LANGUAGE The Hawaiian language consists of 12 letters: A, E, I, 0, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, W. That is vowels (A E I O U) and eight consonants (H K L M P N W ‘). Yes, the apostrophe is a consonant in the Hawaiian language. Vowels sounds the same as Spanish and Japanese more or less like the examples below: A ah, as in "father" or uh as in "above" E ay, as in "Gay" or eh, as in "pet" I ee, as in "see" 0 oh, as in "go" U oo, as in "noon" The consonant w is usually pronounced as a "v". Other consonants are pronounced like they are in English. Hawaiian words are different in structure than English words. There are never two or more consonants together, and every syllable and therefore every word, ends in a vowel. Each word is broken into syllables, similar to English, but the language is very vowel intensive. If a consonant is present, it is the beginning of a new syllable.