[NEWS] Five language links: Armenian, Icelandic, Irish, Ladino, Scots

[rfmcdonald]

• This r/unresolvedmysteries thread asks the question of where the Armenian language, a unique Indo-European language, came from.


• This Ragnar Jónasson article in The Guardian asks the question of how long the Icelandic language, with relatively few speakers and facing a tidal wave of influence from English, can outlast this competition.


• The Irish Times notes that the Irish language was heard in the British House of Commons for the first time in a century, spoken by a Plaid Cymru MP asking why this language has so little institutional support in Northern Ireland.


• Over at the BBC, Susanna Zaraysky takes a look at the Ladino language--a Spanish variant--traditionally used by the Sephardic Jews of Bosnia, and how this language is declining here as elsewhere among the Sephardim.


• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the Scots language, a distinctive Germanic language that was never quite broken away from English, and how this language persists despite everything.