Non-English-based programming languages
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Non-English-based programming languages are computer programming languages that, unlike most well-known programming languages, do not use keywords taken from, or inspired by, the English vocabulary.
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Categories of non-English-based programming languages
- Programming languages that were originally created in a different language than English
- Versions of English-based programming languages that were translated to other languages
- Programming languages that do not use any natural language keywords
- Fictional programming languages
- Programming languages which allow modification of their own parser's syntax.
Many languages of said Category 2 have been developed in order to teach programming to young non-English-speaking children. It has been argued, however, that young children with no knowledge of English would regard any programming language just as a set of keywords, and if those keywords happened to be English, the children would learn a bit of English as a by-product of computer programming.
Category 5 includes languages like Perl, in which Perl code can change the parser itself, and thus allow writing of programs in different languages. Damian Conway's Perl module Lingua::Romana::Perligata (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata.html) demonstrates how a Perl module can allow programs to be written in Latin and interpreted and executed by the Perl interpreter.
Programming languages based on non-English natural languages
These languages generally fall into categories 1, 2, and 4.
- Chinese BASIC: Several versions of Chinese-localized BASIC based on Applesoft BASIC for some Taiwan-made Apple II clones. One of which was shipped with the Multitech Microprofessor II (known as Acer today). [1] (http://www.cbflabs.com/academy/story/04.htm)
- FOCAL: Keywords were originally English, but DEC produced versions of FOCAL in several European languages
- hForth: A Forth system with an optional Korean keyword set
- HPL, Hebrew Programming Language
- Lexico: A Spanish OO language for teaching .NET programming
- Plankalkül: An early language developed by German computer pioneer Konrad Zuse
- Rapira: A Pascal variant using Russian keywords
- SAKO: A language created in the 1950s and nicknamed the "Polish FORTRAN"
- Superlogo: A Dutch creation for computer-aided instruction, based on Logo
Programming languages not based on any natural language
These languages fall into category 3. Many of them are esoteric programming languages.
- APL: A language based on mathematical notation and abstractions
- Brainfuck: A minimalist esoteric programming language, created for the purpose of having a compiler fit in fewer than 256 bytes
- PILOT: A computer-aided instruction language, somewhat similar to Logo
- var'aq: A fictional language based on the Klingon language of Star Trek
- Wierd: An esoteric language encoding semantics in angles and distances
External links
- Brainfuck website (http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/bf/)
- HPL homepage (http://hpl.sourceforge.net/) at Sourceforge
- hForth website (http://www.taygeta.com/hforth.html)
- SAKO information page at HOPL ("The Encyclopedia of Programming Languages") (http://hopl.murdoch.edu.au/showlanguage.prx?exp=2178) – By Diarmuid Pigott