Hawaiian alphabet not make it a letter of the alphabet. In publishing the Hawaiian Bible, they used the okina to distinguish ' ('my') from ' ('your'). It was not until 1864 that the okina became a recognized letter of the Hawaiian alphabet. As early as 1821, one of the missionaries, Hiram Bingham, was using macrons in making handwritten transcriptions of Hawaiian vowels. The macron, or "", was used to differentiate between short and long vowels. The current official Hawaiian alphabet consists of 12 letters: five vowels (A a, E e, I i, O o, U u) and seven consonants (H h, K
Lao alphabet Revolutionary Party, all vowels are now written. However, many Lao outside of Laos, and some inside Laos, continue to write according to former spelling standards. For example, the old spelling of ສເລີມ 'to hold a ceremony, celebrate' contrasts with the new ສະເຫລີມ. The twenty-seven consonants of the Lao alphabet are divided into three tone classes—high (ສູງ ), middle (ກາງ ), and low (ຕ່ຳ )—which determine the tonal pronunciation of the word in conjunction with the four tone marks and distinctions between short and long vowels. Aside from tone, there are twenty-one distinct consonant sounds that occur in the Lao language.