The majority speakers of the Sherpa language live in the Khumbu region of Nepal, spanning from the Chinese (Tibetan) border in the east to the Bhotekosi River in the west.

[3] About 127,000 speakers live in Nepal (2021 census), some 16,000 in Sikkim, India (2011), and some 800 in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (1994).

Sherpa is predominantly a spoken language, although it is occasionally written using either the Devanagari or Tibetan script.

It is closely related to Central Tibetan, Jirel, Humla, Mugom, Dolpo, Lo-ke, Nubri, Tsum, Langtang, Kyirong, Yolmo, Gyalsumdo, Kagate, Lhomi, Walung, and Tokpe Gola.

The imperfective and perfective aspects and the volitional (whether an action was intentional), infinitive, disjunct, and imperative (commands) moods are differentiated.

In verb suffixes, the infinitive, disjunct (action not intended or not known to be intended), past observational, mirative (speaker's surprise), volitional, augmentative (greater intensity), participle, durative (action lasts through an extended time), hortative (plural imperative), dictative (narrating a story), descentive, ablative, and locative are distinguished.

Third-person pronouns may be used as demonstratives, and the third person singular nominative also serves as the postnominal definite marker.