The northern Uilta who live along the river of Tym’ and around the village of Val have reindeer herding as one of their traditional occupations.

Uilta is closely related to Nanai, and is classified within the southern branch of the Tungusic languages.

Classifications which recognize an intermediate group between the northern and southern branch of Manchu-Tungus classify Uilta (and Nanai) as Central Tungusic.

The percentage of 18.5%, which is 64 people pointed that they have a command of their ("Ulta") language, which, mostly, should be considered as a result of increased national consciousness in the post-Soviet period than a reflection of the real situation.

Uilta also live on the island of Hokkaido in Japan, but the number of speakers is uncertain, and certainly small.

"The distribution of Uilta is closely connected with their half-nomadic lifestyle, which involves reindeer herding as a subsistence economy.

The Northern Uilta people live near the Terpenija Bay and the Poronai River during spring and summer and migrate to the East Sakhalin mountains for autumn and winter.

Takeshiro Matsuura (1818–1888), a prominent Japanese explorer of Hokkaido, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, was the first to make a notable record of the language.

The oldest set of known records[clarification needed] of the Uilta language is a 369-entry collection of words and short sample sentences under the title "Worokkongo", dating from the mid-nineteenth century.

Other researchers who published some work on the Uilta were Hisharu Magata, Hideya Kawamura, T.I Petrova, A.I Novikova, L.I Sem, and contemporary specialist L.V.

For example, the element – ɲɲee (< *ɲia), has become a general suffix for 'humans', as in ǝǝktǝ-ɲɲee ‛woman’, geeda-ɲɲee ‛one person’ and xasu-ɲɲee ‛how many people?’.

[dubious – discuss] Uilta has participial markers for three tenses: past -xa(n-), present +ri, and future -li.

When the participle of an uncompleted action, +ri, is combined with the suffix -la, it creates the future tense marker +rila-.

N:noun S:subject O:object V:verb TariDETgoropciADJnariNTari goropci nariDET ADJ NThat old man.EriDETgoropciADJnariNEri goropci nariDET ADJ N‘This old man.’ArisalDETgoropciADJnari-lNArisal goropci nari-lDET ADJ N‘Those old men’.Subjects precede verbs: BiiSxalacci-wiVBii xalacci-wiS V‘I will wait’.ii biiSŋennɛɛ-wiV{ii bii} ŋennɛɛ-wiS V‘Yes, I will go’.With an object the order is SOV: SiiSgumasikkasOnu-laVSii gumasikkas nu-laS O V‘You have money’.Adjectives go after their noun: tariDETnari caaSninda-jiNkusaljiADJtuksɛɛ-niVtari {nari caa} ninda-ji kusalji tuksɛɛ-niDET S N ADJ V‘That man runs faster than that dog’.A sentence where the complement comes after its complement is a postposition:[clarification needed] SundattaaNdug-jiNbii-niPostSundattaa dug-ji bii-niN N Post‘The fish (sundattaa) is at home (dug-ji)’.