[3][4][5][6] A February 2015 article gives the number of fluent speakers as 12, all over age 70, which includes two qualified teachers; the Tribal Council estimates about 150 people have some ability in the language.

[7] Louis Headman edited a dictionary of the Ponca People, published by the University of Nebraska Press.

[9] Voiceless sounds /p, t, tʃ, k/ may also be heard as tense [pː, tː, tʃː, kː] in free variation.

One consonant, sometimes written l or th, is a velarized lateral approximant with interdental release, [ɫᶞ], found for example in ní btháska [ˌnĩ ˈbɫᶞaska] "flat water" (Platte River), the source of the name Nebraska.

It varies freely from [ɫ] to a light [ð̞], and derives historically from Siouan *r. Initial consonant clusters include approximates, as in /blᶞ/ and /ɡlᶞ/.

Consonants are written as in the IPA in school programs, apart from the alveopalatals j, ch, chʰ, zh, sh, shʼ, the glottal stop ’, the voiced velar fricative gh, and the dental approximant th.

Vowel length is distinctive in accented syllables, though it is often not written: [nãːꜜde] "heart", [nãꜜde] "(inside) wall".