View source for Which apostrophe character should I use

Many languages use an apostrophe-like character.

The problem this presents is that the traditional apostrophe (like what we use in English) is a punctuation character.  It works okay for saying something's "elided" (like in ''something<u>'</u>s''), but it's not appropriate to represent a segment (like glottal stop in Tongan), super-segment (like aspiration in Nivkh or ejective status in Navajo), or modifier (like in Uzbek).  There are special characters for this.

Here are some common apostrophe-like characters:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
! symbol !! name !! codepoint !! use for what
|-
| ' || apostrophe || U0027 || misc
|-
| ` || backtick || U0060 || 
|-
| ʻ || turned comma / ʻokina || U02BB || glottal stop (in Polynesian languages)<br />also used for Uzbek oʻ, gʻ, etc.
|-
| ʼ ||  || U02BC || glottal stops, aspiration, etc.
|-
| ‘ ||  || U2018 || start quote
|-
| ’ ||  || U2019 || end quote
|}

In theory you'll want to analyse all of these, but generate the correct one for your language.  So you'll want [[spellrelax]].

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