While the population continues to grow, civil war and Soviet efforts to assimilate the Bartangi or move them to cities have caused the language to dwindle.
[4] The language was unknown to Europe until the early twentieth century, when French linguist Robert Gauthiot published his findings on the area in his 1916 essay Notes sur le yazgoulami, dialecte iranien des confins du Pamir.
The next major European involvement in the area was by the Russians, who over the course of the nineteenth century had conquered parts of Tajikistan until its formal declaration as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in 1929.
In addition, with a 96% literacy rate throughout the province, even the isolated region of Bartang is well-versed in the national languages of Russian and Tajik, as well as Uzbek.
In addition to wiping out portions of the population, the war forced many of the Pamir inhabitants out of their native lands and into cities, where their languages are of little use.