Based on the data provided by the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), there is only 1 Babinksy Saami speaker still alive today . During the All-Russian Population Censuses, there was never any distinction between different language variants of Saami, which is why the data concerning the size of the ethnic group and the languages spoken contains only information about Saami and Saami language in general. Thus, based on the 2020 All-Russian Population Census, the total number of Saami in the Russian Federation is 1550 people, including 690 men and 860 women. Of this total, 1370 people (632 men and 738 women) live on their traditional territory (Murmansk Oblast), based on the data of October 1, 2021.
The last Census also did not differentiate between the speakers of different Saami languages. 224 people indicated Saami proficiency, and 223 of them identified themselves as Saami (with 204 living in the Murmansk Oblast). 247 people indicated Saami as their native language (of which 215 live in the Murmansk Oblast) and their nationality. Based on the Murmanskstat data, 220 residents of the Oblast indicated Saami as their native language (as of October 1, 2021) and 215 of them identified themselves as Saami.
In 2022, the Institute of Linguistics RAS attributed Babinski Saami the vitality status of 1B-. Such status is granted to the so-called dormant languages, where there are no more regular communication, no intergenerational transmission, and the number of speakers varies between 1 and 40 people. Based on the data provided by the Institute of Linguistics RAS, there is only 1 Babinksy Saami speaker still alive today. According to Rantala & Sergina (2009), the last native speaker of Babinski Saami was Maria Sergina, who passed away in 2003. However, a year later E. Scheller (Scheller 2010) indicated that there were still at least “two people aged over 70 who had certain passive knowledge of Babinski, but did not speak it and lived outside the compact residence of Babinski Saami”.