"fully proficient speakers are all in their 60s or older; children still learn the language at home. Ersu is essentially used as the primary language of oral communication in family and community events."

"Older Ersu speakers (typically above their sixties) are mostly trilingual (Ersu, SW Mandarin, Nuosu). Over the last three decades, most Ersu speakers have been bilingual using SW Mandarin in daily life. The current trend for the school-going generation is to become practically monolingual in Mandarin."

"Ersu has its own pictographic writing system, known as shaba (Ersu /ṣàpá/‘ritual priest’) writing, which is chiefly used by Bon priests. In 2014, Chirkova and Wang Dehe developed a Romanization system (see http://wdh51818.blog.163.com/blog/static/418964201532325438373/). It is currently used in Ersu traditional story annotations for ELAR (ELDP) and for the Ersu-Mandarin Dictionary (by Wang & Chirkova, in preparation)."

They are included in the Tibetan nationality, but speak a distinct Xifan language. The eastern part of their traditional territory is now heavily populated with Nuosu.