"Use of the vernacular is strong and exclusive in certain domains in all locations. First, the vernacular is universally used as the main language in the home. It is always the first language learned by children and is, generally, the language of greatest fluency for all. The vernacular is always the language used for unofficial situations, that is, in normal everyday personal contact not associated with any public occasion or regulatory authority... use of the vernacular is at least stable in the community, and perhaps increasing. "

"Tajik is used in official situations, such as in public gatherings or meetings... Russian is used at work and in official situations by a small minority of respondents, such as medical staff and teachers of the Russian language... Several respondents expressed negative attitudes when asked directly about their attitudes to the vernacular... One respondent told us, ‘Bartangi has no place anywhere but here’... Every respondent considered the vernacular to be important or very important for communication and all but one respondent considered the vernacular important or very important for being a good member of one’s family... Thus, while answers to direct questions on the value of the vernacular resulted in negative opinions, questions using the perceived benefit model or other questions revealed that at an underlying level, respondents consider their language to be important and value its maintenance among the younger generation."

"Our research indicates that almost all existing vernacular written materials for the Rushani group dialects [including Bartangi] can be categorized as technical or popular. Not everyone we spoke to was aware of the existence of any vernacular materials. Some respondents claimed that no books exist in the vernacular, or even that the languages have no alphabet and are impossible to read or write... The above-mentioned materials in the vernacular, by and large, use orthographies developed by linguists, which differ in some respects from the Tajik and Russian alphabets in that they contain additional characters that are unfamiliar to non-linguists. Several of our respondents reported difficulties in reading these orthographies... Despite unfamiliarity with the official alphabet, it appears that the vernacular is being written, using spontaneous orthographies based on the Tajik alphabet."