On Friday, December 13, Russian official reported at a special conference that the number of Russian speakers worldwide has declined by about 120 million people in the past 20 years.

      According to Benjamin Kaganov, deputy minister of education and science, said that the language’s declining influence abroad was a cause for concern. Of the 260 million Russian speakers currenly living in the world, 140 million live in Russia itself.

      The language would disappear beyond Russia’s borders within 50 years, under competition from more aggressively mobile tongues such as English, and also because of previous insufficient measures to boost the popularity of Russian language.

      Last month Prime Minister Medvedev established a new Cabinet council to promote the study of Russian abroad, giving it 1.5 billion rubles ($46 million) to open language centers in countries around the world.