The eastern subgroup includes Kashmiri in the Kashmir valley; Shina in the districts of Gilgit and Tangir, north of Kashmir; Phalura (or Palola) and the closely related Sawi; and a number of languages and dialects sometimes referred to generally as Kōhestānī (lit., “of the mountains”) in the Indus, Swat, and Panjkora basins: Maiyan (so called by native speakers but Kōhestānī by others) with the Kanywali dialect, Torwali, and Bashkarik (or Diri, known in another dialect variant as Garwi).

Since Urdu became the national language of Pakistan in 1947 and increasingly functions as the country’s lingua franca, it has replaced Persian as a compulsory language in the curriculum. From the 1980s the presence of Persian in the educational system became negligible. Despite this, a significant influx of additional Perso-Arabic words has entered the lexicons of all the languages of Pakistan through Urdu.

"The orthography for Torwali was developed by the local organization IBT in 2004-2005. The script is alphabetic, is based on the Perso-Arabic script and is written from right to left. This was the logical choice since many members of the Torwali people were already familiar with and used this writing system in the national language Urdu..."

"[O]ne of the telling features of the Torwali language revitalization has also been the strategic expansion
and spread of the language beyond schools. More precisely, we find that the activists of the revitalization program aptly stretched the range of revitalization beyond the schools so that an enabling and a vibrant social and cultural ecology may be created where language could take deeper roots and flourish in a naturalistic manner."

The Torwali always use Torwali to communicate with other Torwali speakers in their daily life. A group of male Torwali have established a group called "the Kohistan Cultural Promotion Society (KCPS)" for the Torwali language and culture.

Urdu is the national language and medium for instruction whereas Pashto is the lingua franca of the province. The frequency of incorporating Urdu terms for produce and numbers is increasing. Arabic words are borrowed for religion. English words such as hotel, taxi, etc. are also borrowed into Torwali.