Аннотация:One of the important tasks for sociolinguistics is to solve the problem of forecasting the future for differentlinguistic varieties and languages. Conceptual forecasting is important for planning the social languagefunctions in the areas of organized communication of different linguistic communities.In the Russian Federation there are three main types of linguistic communities: majority languages (speakersof more than 50,000 people – 32 linguistic communities); minority languages (speakers of less than 50,000people – 54 linguistic communities), national minorities or diasporas, there are about 50 of them.It should be noted that the current level of development of the social functions among the languages in theselinguistic communities is very different. Majority languages are developing most intensively, although anegative shift is sometimes observed among them in a number of areas of communication compared to theSoviet period. Most minority languages have insufficient potential for further development, and the languagesof Siberia and the Russian Far East are at most risk, these languages have a small ethnic community, i.e.the potential to expand in social functions is low.Forecasting the future of the languages in the Russian Federation includes a number of sociolinguisticprocedures: the identification of linguistic communities with speakers that use an ethnic language; study ofethnolinguistic conditions of their existence, including compactness or dispersion of living; language contactsof speakers of a language community, etc.Based on the research material, it is possible to trace the trends in the development of linguistic communitiesover two or three decades, evaluate these trends by measuring the demographic and communicative powerof a given language or languages. This makes it possible to formulate possible scenarios for their furtherdevelopment – the expansion or narrowing in their social functions, the preservation or loss of a language bya certain linguistic community. Should there be a danger of the disappearance of a language, specialattention should be paid to its scientific description, recording its texts, in order to preserve this language forthe world culture.Keywords: linguistic community, areas of communication, demographic power of a language,