"The recent survey... shows that Eastern Khanty dialects... [are] being used increasingly less as means of daily communication. There are almost no child speakers, and only the older generation preserves knowledge of the language. There are, however, members of the Khanty communities, who maintain a strong ethnic identity, and who initiate and welcome efforts aiming at preserving their cultural and linguistic heritage, and are eager to assist linguistic researchers in the area."

"The attempts at developing teaching materials inKhanty are based mostly on the western dialects.... Efficacy of attempted mother tongue education suffered from students'and teachers' alienation from the existing teaching aids, as they are based on other dialects, which differ considerably from those spoken locally

"Except for a small textbook in Surgut dialect, Eastern Khanty is unwritten, and there is no educational instruction in it as the native language. Standardization of the language has not occurred."

degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the remaining speakers; there is also some traditional bilingualism between Eastern Khanty and Central Selkup