"Speakers under age twenty five often do not know the language well. ... Chimwiini thus must be considered highly endangered and unstable."

"Whatever the factors responsible for the stabilization of Chimwiini over the past six hundred years, the situation has changed drastically within the past forty years largely due to political maneuverings... By 1972 all government officials were required to speak and write Somali [the national language of Somalia] and it was instituted in all public schools, including the school in Brava. ... [The] most important factor in the endangerment of Chimwiini was the eruption of civil war in Somalia in the early 1990s. ... Those who could leave Brava did so by whatever means possible. ... In just three decades, Chimwiini has gone from having a stable community of speakers to having its speakers scattered across the globe."