The use of the Tujia language varies from place to place. In the heartlands, even children are able to speak Tujia to some degree though young parents tend to raise their children in Chinese due to the socio-economic pressure. Few bilinguals.

no established written forms

Regularly used but increasingly the young prefer to speak Chinese and are encouraged by their parents.

Also use Mandarin Chinese or Hmong Njua [hnj].

In rapid decline; reported to have been spoken by as many as 170,000 people twenty years ago, but now perhaps 60,000 speakers, plus about half as many with passive knowledge. There are nineteen village clusters on the borders where Longshan, Baoqing, Guzhang and Yongshun counties meet; there, the language is still spoken, in some places mainly by old people but in a few also by some children; all are bilingual in varieties of Chinese. Recently extinct in southeastern Sichuan, northeastern Guizhou and southwestern Hubei provinces, extinct or moribund in most of northwestern Hunan, severely endangered in the remaining areas.