diff --git a/tests/ssml.test b/tests/ssml.test
index c337f1e9..69a6a462 100755
--- a/tests/ssml.test
+++ b/tests/ssml.test
@@ -2,12 +2,21 @@
 
 test_ssml() {
 	INPUT=$1
+
+	if [ "$2" = "punct" ]
+	then
+	PARAMETERS="--punct -x"
+	else
+	PARAMETERS="-v en-US --ipa=2"
+	fi
+
 	echo "testing ${INPUT}"
 	cp $(dirname $INPUT)/$(basename ${INPUT%.*}).expected expected.txt
 	ESPEAK_DATA_PATH=`pwd` LD_LIBRARY_PATH=src:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH} \
-		src/espeak-ng -m -q -v en-US --ipa=2 -f ${INPUT} > actual.txt
+		src/espeak-ng -m -q $PARAMETERS -f ${INPUT} > actual.txt
 	diff expected.txt actual.txt || exit 1
 }
 
-for i in `ls tests/ssml/*.ssml` ; do test_ssml $i ; done
+for i in `ls tests/ssml/*.ssml` ; do test_ssml $i; done
+for i in `ls tests/ssml/*.ssml2` ; do test_ssml $i punct; done
 
diff --git a/tests/ssml/references.expected b/tests/ssml/references.expected
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..989aabe0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/ssml/references.expected
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+l'EsDan_: gr'eIt@D,an_: 'amp@s,and t'Ik_: kw'oUts
+b'i: b'i:
+z'Ed z'Ed
+
diff --git a/tests/ssml/references.ssml2 b/tests/ssml/references.ssml2
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..46bf248e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/ssml/references.ssml2
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+<!-- SSML reference test
+Entity references &lt; &gt; &amp; &apos; and &quot; should be replaced in the buffer
+Character references &#65; are translated to Unicode (65 = 'A')
+
+See https://www.tutorialspoint.com/xml/xml_syntax.htm
+-->
+<speak> &lt; &gt; &amp; &apos; &quot; </speak>
+<speak> B &#66;</speak>
+<speak>z &#x7A;</speak>