[4] Mansi is subdivided into four main dialect groups which are to a large degree mutually unintelligible, and therefore best considered four languages.

Individual dialects are known according to the rivers their speakers live(d) on:[5] Tagil Tura Chusovaya Pelym North Vagil South Vagil Lower Lozva Middle Lozva Vishera Lower Konda Middle Konda Upper Konda Jukonda Upper Lozva Severnaya Sosva Sygva Ob All of the sub-dialects given above are those which were still spoken in the late 19th and early 20th century and have been documented in linguistic sources on Mansi, except for certain varieties of Western and Southern Mansi, spoken further west; the Tagil, Tura and Chusovaya dialects of Southern[6] and the Vishera dialect of Western,[7] found in pre-scientific records from the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The two dialects last mentioned were hence spoken on the western slopes of the Urals, where also several early Russian sources document Mansi settlements.

Placename evidence has been used to suggest Mansi presence reaching still much further west in earlier times,[8] though this has been criticized as poorly substantiated.

Eastern Mansi became extinct in 2018, when its last speaker Maksim Šivtorov (Максим Семенович Шивторов) died.

It had strong Tatar influence and displayed several archaisms such as vowel harmony, retention of /y/ (elsewhere merged with */æ/), /tsʲ/ (elsewhere deaffricated to /sʲ/), /æː/ (elsewhere fronted to /aː/ or diphthongized) and /ɑː/ (elsewhere raised to /oː/).