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Updating the Hawaiian texts as a single quotes is being used instead of the ʻOkina. - #270

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Aug 5, 2026
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Updating the Hawaiian texts as a single quotes is being used instead of the ʻOkina.#270
simoncozens merged 2 commits into
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@aaronbell

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Swapped all examples of single left or right quotes for the ʻOkina. Gemini also found some spelling errors, that have been corrected.

Specimen Key Original Text Correction Why It Matters
styles hoʻomaopop hoʻomaopopo Missing letter. The Hawaiian word for "understanding/recognition" is hoʻomaopopo  .
specimen_36 kaupaʻa kuapaʻa Spelling typo. The phrase for "slavery/servitude" is kauā kuapaʻa (the letter 'u' is misplaced in your first word)  .
specimen_32 a ʻaʻe ana aʻaʻe ana Spacing issue. Aʻaʻe is a single frequentative verb meaning "to violate repeatedly." It should not have a space between the first 'a' and the ʻokina  .
specimen_21 ʻA ʻole ʻAʻole Spacing issue. In the third sentence, there is an accidental space separating the opening ʻokina from the "A" (ʻA ole).
specimen_16 o ia ʻo ia Missing ʻokina. The pronoun ʻo ia (meaning "he/she/it") requires an ʻokina before the 'o'  .

…of the ʻOkina.

Swapped all examples of single left or right quotes for the ʻOkina. Gemini also found some spelling errors, that have been corrected.
Missed uploading the spelling errors
@simoncozens

simoncozens commented Aug 4, 2026

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Gemini also found some spelling errors

To be honest I'm unconvinced about Gemini's fluency in minority languages. It might be right. But equally it might be wrong. I'd like us to respect minority languages and their language use communities, so I don't want to be taking chances here. I would much prefer human review. Because:

hoʻomaopop | hoʻomaopopo | Missing letter. The Hawaiian word for "understanding/recognition" is hoʻomaopopo  .

This might be true. But the context is "ho’omaopop ‘ana". Does Hawaiian have vowel elision? I don't think so but it might. The official translation at https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/translations/hawaiian also has "ho’omaopop ‘ana". I think the bar to "correct" stuff needs to be higher than "Gemini says so".

@aaronbell

aaronbell commented Aug 4, 2026

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Fair enough :)

For hoʻomaopop:

  1. From Wikipedia, "Hawaiian words end only in vowels, and every consonant must be followed by a vowel." Based on this, one can assume that either hoʻomaopop is a typo, or there's something else going on.

  2. Vowel elision does exist in spoken Hawaiian, but from references I see online, these omissions were always marked with an apostrophe, and therefore are discouraged in written scenarios to ensure that there is no confusion with the ʻOkina. As there is no apostrophe here, I assume that it was not intended to be dropped.

  3. Additionally, looking at https://hawaiian-grammar.org/current/, I find this sentence:
    No ka hoʻomaopopo au i paʻi akula i kēlā moʻolelo i ka nūpepa., for "For remembering that story I recently published that story in the newspaper.". Sentence structure provided here and here also align.

With this, I feel confident that the official document has a typo.

In ‘A’ole e noho kauā kaupa’a ke kanaka; ua pāpā ‘ia ka noho kauā kuapa’a, a me ka ho’okuapa’a ‘ana ma nā ‘ano apau loa., the sentence is referring to servitude. Per the Hawaiian Dictionary, this is written "Kauā kuapaʻa", which indicates a spelling error in the first part of the sentence.

W/r/t the other spacing issues, our copy seems to be wrong vs the official UN version, so I feel confident in those without further checking.

@simoncozens
simoncozens merged commit 12eeb69 into main Aug 5, 2026
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@moyogo
moyogo deleted the hawaiian branch August 6, 2026 15:23
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