[4]: 1–2 Tundra Nenets is closely related to the Nganasan and Enets language, and more distantly to Selkup.

In spite of the large area in which Tundra Nenets is spoken, the language is very uniform with few dialectal differences.

This territory has been in constant growth over the past millennium, as Tundra Nenets settlers moved further east and engaged with other groups of Enets.

[4]: 5–6  The language is classified as 6b (Threatened), indicating that it is still spoken by all age generations, but the number of speakers is decreasing.

[6] Tundra Nenets is spoken primarily within family circles and in traditional economic activities, such as hunting and reindeer herding.

Nonetheless, there is a small amount of Tundra Nenets literature, and radio and television broadcasts are available in the language.

This reduced vowel was thought to have two distinct qualities depending on whether it was found in a stressed or unstressed position.

For example, such vowel clusters can occur when forming the finite stem: me° 'he takes (3SG)' gives meə-s'° 'he took (3SG.PST).

The palatalized and plain vowel allophones are distinguished in the original orthography[5]: 36–37 The Cyrillic orthography does not distinguish the reduced vowel from a, nor the long ī and ū from their short counterparts i and u. ǣ is not found in a palatalized environment, and thus does not show up in the chart.

[5]: 38 Typical of the Uralic language family, Tundra Nenets has an agglutinative morphological structure with a wide variety of suffixes.

Other word classes include adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions, particles, and interjections.

Although the morphology is predominately agglutinative, there are some suffixes that express multiple meanings, along with periphrastic clausal negation and some auxiliary verbs.

[4]: 8–9 Tundra Nenets contains a few nominal derivational affixes that can be used to denote a cause, express an instrument, or refer to a location of action.

[4]: 45  There are also denominal verbs with the meaning 'to use as X, to have as X', which are formed from the accusative plural stem, such as in səb'i-q' 'to use as a hat' (from səwa 'hat').

[4]: 9  For example, the following noun is inflected for similative case and third person plural number.

There are sixteen moods, which include the imperative, hortative, optative, conjunctive, necessitative, interrogative, probabilitative, obligative, potential, and inferential.

[4]: 9  For example, the verb below is inflected for subjunctive mood, first person singular agreement, and past tense.

The most frequent suppletive verbs are xǣ- ‘to go, to depart’, ŋǣ- ‘to be’, to- ‘to come’, ta- ‘to bring, to give’ and the negative auxiliary nʹi-.

[4]: 141–142 tʹuku°thisWera-hWera-GENtireindeertʹuku° Wera-h tithis Wera-GEN reindeer‘this reindeer of Wera’s’[4]: 143 (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) ЕтEtхибяриxibjariненэцьnenėc’соямариантаsojamariantaхуркариxurkariправадаpravadaтнява,tnjava,ӈобойṇobojненээяnenėėjaнидуniduнисьnis’токалба,tokalba,ӈыбтамбаṇybtambaилеватуilevatuтара.tara.Ет хибяри ненэць соямарианта хуркари правада тнява, ӈобой ненээя ниду нись токалба, ӈыбтамба илевату тара.Et xibjari nenėc’ sojamarianta xurkari pravada tnjava, ṇoboj nenėėja nidu nis’ tokalba, ṇybtamba ilevatu tara.All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.