All are bilingual in Ishkashimi and Dari, but Ishakashimi is used at home and in the community together with Dari. The older generation uses mainly Ishkashimi and some Dari within the family. The younger generation uses Ishkashmi and Dari to a similar extent at home. Children tend to speak Dari among each other.

"In the Ishkashim area Ishkashimi and Dari are used to a similar extent in the primary domains of the family and the community. Ishkashimi is used occasionally in the secondary domain of travel and trade. It is very sporadically spoken in the secondary domains of education and religion, but not enough and not in a structured enough way to be even considered here and to impact the vitality of the language. People mainly use Dari in the remaining secondary domains of media and administration."

No scripts were developed for Ishkashmi spoken in Afghanistan.

Like other Pamir languages it was not written until recently. For centuries the sole literary language in the region has been Persian, in which works by Ismaʿilis, the predominant religious group there, and some folk tales have been written. In the early 1990s attempts were made to introduce a script for Eškāšmī based on the same Cyrillic alphabet adopted for Tajik.

Ishkashmi is still commonly used as a language for everyday communication. According to T. Pakhalina, Ishkashmi is surviving, although its sphere of use is narrowing.

"All the Ishkashmis, except young children, speak Tadzhik."