Academia has categorized the Pingpu tongues as dead languages, and even though during the Dutch occupation period missionaries used the romanized "Hsinkang script" to record the Siraya language, and although the words to ritual songs recorded in Chinese characters, still survive among shamanesses (mediums who transmit the instructions of Alizu), there is almost nobody today who can interpret their meaning, let alone converse in the language.
學術界已經斷定平埔話為死語，縱使在荷據時期，有傳教士以羅馬拼音記錄西拉雅語的「新港文書」；或是姨（傳達阿立祖旨意的巫女）那裡保留的用漢字記錄的牽曲（祭歌）歌詞，現在卻幾乎沒人能解讀其中的意義，更不用說更複雜的會話了。