Inanwatan is primarily spoken in the village of Inanwatan, South Sorong Regency on the south coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula, but also in the village of Seget, Sorong Regency on the western tip of the peninsula, as well as by a community in the Jalan Ferry area of the city of Sorong.

[2] Inanwatan is endangered: de Vries reports in 2004 that it was mostly people over 50 years of age who speak it fluently, and that the newest generation do not know it.

[1] The language is not a central component of the identity of the people, who identify more strongly with the smaller descent groups.

[6] Like the Romance languages, Inanwatan distinguishes masculine and feminine grammatical genders.

[7] Maybrat, on the other hand, uses concord prefixes instead of suffixes to mark gender.