Northern Khanty
The number of native speakers is quite reduced among the younger generations, yet the people of the older generation speak the Khanty language well. Poor language proficiency among the younger generations is due to several factors. First of all, most children receive their education in boarding schools, and therefore do not see their family for a significant part of the year, having no contact with the older relatives they could speak Khanty with. Another factor is the disappearance of traditional occupations leading to people moving to multinational villages and cities, where it becomes more difficult to preserve their native language. Secondly, there are internal changes in the language itself as it needs to be adapted to modern realities. Still, preservation and development are not impossible, as any language can successfully express both the traditional culture and the newly emerged areas of life.
Eastern Khanty
It is impossible to estimate the number of speakers of Eastern Khanty based on census data. Although ethnographers and linguists are aware of the fundamental differences between the three ethnographic groups (Southern, Northern and Eastern Khanty) and their languages, in all censuses conducted in the Russian Empire, the USSR and Russia, the Khanty have always been counted as a single people with no divisions into individual ethnographic groups.