The local dialects spoken by the people of Garhwal are terned as Garhwali or Gadwali dialects. Various variations of Garhwali can be seen at the different parts of Garhwali.

Almost all people who can speak and understand Garhwali can also speak and understand Hindi, one of the most commonly spoken languages of India. As per a study, Garhwali is only 50% intelligible for Hindi speakers and there is one-way full intelligibility of Hindi for Garhwali speakers because of the high rate of Hindi literacy in Uttarakhand and the popularity of Hindi in Northern India.