[citation needed] The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) lists Lepcha as an endangered language with the following characterization.

The Lepcha language is spoken in Sikkim and Darjeeling district in West Bengal of India.

[citation needed] There are very few remaining households where the younger generation actively speaks the language.

Revitalization efforts are minimal and have had no major impact in conserving the language where it was indigenously spoken.

[citation needed] Lepcha is spoken by minorities in the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal, as well as parts of Nepal and Bhutan.

Lepcha speakers comprise four distinct communities: the Renjóngmú of Sikkim; the Támsángmú of Kalimpong, Kurseong, and Mirik; the ʔilámmú of Ilam District, Nepal; and the Promú of southwestern Bhutan.

[4] Notably, words that are commonly considered obscene or taboo in other languages are not treated as such by native speakers.

Other linguists and historians have used systems based on European languages such as English, French, and German.

When the phoneme /r/ operates as a glide, it can combine with /j/ as a double-glide: ᰕᰥᰤᰩᰮ mryóm, 'to spread over the ground, creep'.

Distinctions between /o/ and /ɔ/ are often lost among non-literate speakers, particularly those highly fluent in Nepali language, which does not contrast the sounds.

Adjectives follow nouns they modify, function as predicates, or stand independently as nominal heads.

[3] According to Plaisier (2007), Lepcha personal pronouns are as follows:[3] Oblique forms appear in parentheses above.

For example, many animal names begin with the Lepcha script syllabic ⟨sâ⟩, e.g., ᰠᰲᰶ sâr 'goat', ᰠᰶᰛᰤᰨᰮ sâryom 'otter', ᰠᰶᰜᰩᰭ sâlók 'rhinoceros', and ᰠᰝᰪ sâhu 'monkey'.

[4][9] Lepcha verbs generally function as predicates or, in relative clauses, as modifiers before a head-noun.

Verbal particles indicating sureness, polite requests, authoritativeness, dubiousness, and other nonlexical information follow clauses.

Below is a chart of such verb- and clause-final suffixes and particles largely following Plaisier (2007):[3] Verbs are negated by a circumfix, ma-⟩...⟨-n(e), e.g., khut 'to be able' becomes ma-khut-ne 'to be unable'.