... The letters of the Hawaiian alphabet were established in 1826 by a committee of missionaries who used the letters to represent the sounds as they heard them. At this time, the change from t to k had begun on the island of Hawai'i but had not reached Kauai where t was used until comparatively recent times. Colonel Spaulding, from the reports to the American Board of Missions in Boston, prepared a paper read before the Hawaiian Historical Society in 1930 in which he showed how the alphabet was compiled. The committee of nine missionaries took various letters in turn and voted on them. The final report, facetiously headed 'Report of the Committee of Health on the state of the Hawaiian language', set forth its conclusions in terms to justify the name assumed by the committee.

The greatest difficulty was experienced in choosing between l and r, k and t, and w and v.

'K is deemed of sufficent capacity to perform its own functions and that of its counterpart T. 

L though two pills have been given to expel it is to remain to do its own office and that of its yoke fellow R. 

R though closely connected with the vitals is expelled by five or six votes or expellants, though nearly the same quantity of preservatives has been applied. 

T though claiming rights as a native member has suffered amputation by the knife and saw of the majority.

V, a contigous member and claiming similar rights, has suffered the same fate, and a gentle [illegible] has been applied to dry the wound of both.'

Thus the committe of health experts chose l, k, and w, but as r, t, and v are the consonants used in Tahiti, whence the Hawaiians came, I have a feeling that the purgatives and the knife were applied to the wrong patient in each pair. A Polynesian kinswoman of mine asked, as I was leaving the Bishop Museum, 'Hele 'oe i ke kaona?' (Are you going to the kaona?). 'What is kaona?' I asked, though I knew quite well. 'Town', she replied. 'That is how we say it in Hawaiian.' 'Why don't you say taone?' I asked. 'That is the way the Maoris say it and taone is nearer in sound to town than kaona.' 'How can I', she replied, 'when there is no t in the Hawaiian alphabet?' ...

... To complicate matters, the sound 'k' is tending to disappear: In certain of these languages a somewhat modern impulse has caused the dropping of k. This is strongly marked in Samoa; it is found in the Marquesas. In Samoe the k has vanished so recently - let it be understood that the reference is to the surd palatal mute and not to the kappation of t which is now conquering modern Samoan as it has succeeded in conquering Hawaiian - the k has so lately dropped out that it actually leaves an audible hole in the word, the vowels remain disjunct from on either side of the gap, crasis does not take place.

In the Samoan alphabetical system the place of the vanished k is taken by the inverted comma; thus fa‘a is the modern form of a preceding faka and is pronounced the same in every particular except that the k has gone away. The choice of the character is governed in this case also by typographical convenience; as the comma represents the briefest breath-pause in the continuing sentence, so the comma inverted might logically represent this infinitesimal but positive breath-pause in the continuity of the word. The sign is in but rare other use; the possibility of the need arising in Samoan composition to mark the opening of a quotation within a quotation seemed, and very reasonably, negligible.

In the Marquesas the type supplies represented the provision of the common French chapel, which in this particular happens to differ from the English in the important detail that the marks of quotation line at the foot of the type instead of at the top and are therefore less practicable for such employment in representing the absent k. But the French fonts must carry a complete supply of accented vowels, a waste provision in the Pacific where the seldom-varied penult accent is almost autographic. The acutely accented type of these otherwise useless characters have been employed by Bishop Dordillon to represent vowels from before which consonants have dropped away. We should not fail to note that he is by no means accurate in such employment of the diacritical mark; in my collation herewith I have not assumed to correct his dictionary record, even though the compared material shows that no loss of consonant has taken place ...