Most young people are semi- speakers, speaking Chinese instead; endangered, and becoming more so.

Classified as Mongol nationality; the group claims descent from a Mongol army left behind in Yunnan during the Yuan Dynasty, and maintains a shrine for Genghis Khan and other Mongol emperors, but they are aware that the language they speak is a Loloish one, and find their speech moderately similar to nearby Nisu. There is no evidence of any Mongol lexical or other material in the language.