According to the All-Russian Population Census of 2010, there are 37 thousand Evenks in Russia, and 4310 people have some knowledge of the Evenki language. However, the census data on the number of the Evenki language speakers do not reflect the reality, being vastly overestimated.
There are no Evenki-speaking monolinguals left. However, in addition to Russian, many Evenks speak the Yakut and Buryat languages on par with or instead of their ethnic Evenki. Large part of the Evenks (56%, that is, 21,008 people according to the data of 2010) live in the territory of Yakutia, where individual areas enjoy the national Evenki status. However, as in the case of the Zhigansky national district, the population often does not speak Evenki at all having switched to the Yakut language instead. The Yakut-speaking Evenks who do not speak Evenki also live in the village of Essei of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the Bodaibinsky district of the Irkutsk region, in the Ayano-Maisky and Tuguro-Chumikansky districts of the Khabarovsk Territory. The expansion of the Evenki-displacing republican language is also observed in the Barguzinsky, Bauntovsky and Kurumkansky districts of Buryatia.
Due to the vast territory of distribution of the Evenki language, the sociolinguistic situation across regions is extremely heterogeneous. In most places where Evenks reside the status of the Evenki language can be defined as moribund.