Mandaic is severely endangered today, and all signs indicate that it will become extinct with the current generation of speakers.

Mandaeans describe it as a kind of Persian or Arabic Jargon, overlain with a few Mandaic words... I have since observed the value of documenting Neo-Mandaic for its own right, not merely for the study of the classical language and other related Aramaic dialects, and it is my hope that my work will restore a sense of perspective regarding the language and demonstrate its value to both the scholarly community and the Mandaean communities.

It is possible there haven't been any monolingual Neo-Mandaic speakers for centuries, due to close contact with other language groups in minority situations.

The few remaining speakers of Neo-Mandaic are proud of their native tongue and would very much like to see it preserved... the Mandaean community in Ahvaz has recently established a Mandaic-language school for children.

Increase in speaker numbers in the 50s: tens of speakers to hundreds of speakers, due to support in the school system, even though it has led to the collapse of some dialect distinctions. The school taught both language and religion.