[3] The total number of speakers is c. 2,500, most of whom are now dispersed throughout Tajikistan and Afghanistan and small villages within the vicinity.

Based on this number, Ishkashimi is threatened to becoming critically endangered or extinct in the next 100 years whereas other significant languages are being spoken in schools, homes, etc.

It was grouped until recently with the Sanglechi dialect under the parent family Sanglechi-Ishkashimi (sgl), but a more comprehensive linguistic analysis showed significant differences between these speech varieties.

[6] The name Ishkashimi (natively called Škošmi) may be borrowed from an Indo-Aryan form *śaka-kṣamā, meaning "land of the Saka".

[5] Originally Ishkashimi was considered to belong to the Sanglechi-Ishkashimi family of Eastern Iranian languages.

But recent research showed that such a combination was inappropriate for these dialects due to the significant linguistic differences between them.

Instructions are solely in Dari, but rarely will teachers speak Ishkashimi to students for explanations.

[10] There were, however, some efforts made at the end of the twentieth century to implement a writing system based on Cyrillic alphabet.