The exact number of speakers is not known, but the linguist Zaira Khalilova, who has carried out fieldwork in the period from 2005 to 2009, gives the figure 8,500.

The dialects are: Upper and Lower Inkhokwari, Kwantlada, Santlada, Khwayni and Khwarshi Proper, originating in their respective villages in the Tsumadinsky district.

Notable phonological processes include assimilation, vowel harmony, and nasalization occurring.

Below are some examples of such agreement in postpositions, demonstrative pronouns, verbs and adjectives, respectively.

The grammatical cases are: absolutive, ergative, two genitive, instrumental, durative, vocative and causal.

Khwarshi verbs normally consist of a stem, an agreement prefix indicating noun class and number of the relevant nouns, and a suffix showing tense, aspect, mood, or the like.

Only about one fourth of the Khwarshi verbs show agreement, all of them beginning with a vowel.

There is a small number of verbs beginning with a vowel that do not show agreement.

In the past- and future tense, however, the verb /-et͡ʃ-/ "to be situated" is used instead of /goli/, which may take both a prefix and a suffix.

[19] Additional letters: аᵸ, аӀ, еᵸ, еӀ, иᵸ, иӀ, ль, оᵸ, оӀ, уᵸ, уӀ, эᵸ