"While preconditions exist for the language to begin the slide towards obsolescence and death, Phuthi has not yet begun to do this in a significant way... Children playing outside speak almost exclusively Phuthi with one another... children acquire Phuthi first and often do not command Sotho and Xhosa until they begin going to school."

"Politically, Phuthi has no institutional status at all, in either Lesotho or South Africa. It is not recognized as a language of any sort (official, national, regional, local) in either country's national census... In conversational exchanges between Phuthi and non-Phuthi speakers, the non-Phuthi language always dominates: broadly this is Sotho in Lesotho and Xhosa in Sinxondo and the Transkei... On the more hopeful side, I observed that Phuthi speakers in Sinxondo and Mpapa use the language with each other in most situations, regardless of age."

"The language has never been committed to writing."