Today, the Niʻihau dialect is taught in Ke Kula Niihau O Kekaha.

[2] It specifically belongs to the Polynesian subbranch, which also includes languages such as Samoan, Tongan, Tahitian and Marquesan.

Unlike the Hawaiian taught in schools, the Niʻihau dialect maintains the variation between [r] and [l], in addition to [t] and [k].

[4] Like the Hawaiian taught in universities, ʻŌlelo Niʻihau has five short and five long vowels, plus diphthongs.

Parker Jones, however, did not find a reduction of /a/ to [ə] in the phonetic analysis of a young speaker from Hilo, Hawaiʻi; so there is at least some variation in how /a/ is realised.

The short-vowel diphthongs are /iu, ou, oi, eu, ei, au, ai, ao, ae/.

[7][8] Newman lists three examples of this phenomenon: Niʻihau dialect does not use an ʻokina to represent glottal stops nor a kahakō (macron) to indicate long vowels.