Five communities (Colombo, Slave Island, Kandy & other Upcountry, Hambantota, and Kirinda) have been examined, and the results indicate that Sri Lanka Malay is no longer acquired by younger generation whereas in other communities (exclusive of Kirinda) Sri Lanka Malay is mainly used by old-middle generations. By contrast, Sri Lanka Malay is used in all domains in Kirinda.

In Colombo, Sinhala and English are predominantly used and younger generations can't speak Sri Lanka Malay. As for Sri Lanka Malay spoken on Slave Island, it has been strongly influenced by Tamil. In Hambantota and Kirinda, speakers of Sri Lanka Malay are often trilingual in Sinhala and Tamil. By contrast, Sri Lanka Malay is the dominant language spoken by all generations in Kirinda. However, language shift to Standard Malay has been observed in Sri Lanka Malay speaking communities.

In the Colombo Malay community, "[i]n general, the community typically shows strong linguistic vitality in SLM in the middle to old generations and rapidly decreasing (in many cases, to nil) linguistic competence in the vernacular in the young generation."

Sri Lanka Malay spoken as a home language. Sinhala, Tamil are national languages.

Clear shift to English among young generation in Colombo. Kirinda is the only vital community of Sri Lanka Malays having a young generation of speakers as L1. Home domain use only.

"While SLM is ordinarily an unwritten vernacular, an increasing number of younger Kirinda Malays with access to text-messaging and electronic networking do not hesitate to write the language in Latin script, using improvised orthography that sometimes reflects the influence of Tamil ..."