It does not have distinct uppercase and lowercase forms, and is represented electronically by the modifier letter turned comma: ʻ.
A phonemic glottal stop exists in many other Polynesian languages as well; these are usually written by a similar apostrophe-like letter.
In some fonts, the ASCII apostrophe is rendered as a right single quotation mark, which is an even less satisfactory glyph for the ʻokina—essentially a 180° rotation of the correct shape.
Additionally, the left single quotation mark is represented in some typefaces by a mirrored "9" glyph, rather than a "6", which is unsuitable for the ʻokina.
[3] Although this letter was introduced in Unicode 1.1 (1993), lack of support for this character prevented easy and universal use for many years.