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.

Contents 1 Prevalence of English-based programming languages 2 International programming languages 3 Based on non-English languages 4 Languages based on symbols instead of keywords 5 Modifiable parser syntax 6 References 7 Sources 8 External links

[edit] Prevalence of English-based programming languages

There has been an overwhelming trend in programming languages to use the English language to inspire the choice of keywords and code libraries. According to the HOPL online database of languages,^[1] out of the 8500+ programming languages recorded, roughly 2400 of them were developed in the United States, 600 in the United Kingdom, 160 in Canada, 75 in Australia.

Another way to say it is that over 1/3 of all programming languages were developed in an English-speaking country. This does not take into account how widely used each language is, nor situations where a language was developed in a non-English-speaking country but used English to appeal to an international audience (see the case of Python from the Netherlands) or because it was based on another language which used English (see the case of Caml, developed in France but using English keywords).

[edit] International programming languages

ALGOL 68's[1] standard was published in numerous languages, and the standard allowed the internationalisation of programming language itself.

On December 20 1968 the "Final Report" (MR 101) was adopted by the Working Group, then subsequently approved by the General Assembly of UNESCO's IFIP for publication. Translations of the standard were made for Russian, German, French and Bulgarian, and then later Japanese. The standard was made available in Braille. ALGOL 68 went on to become the GOST/ГОСТ-27974-88 standard in the Soviet Union.

• GOST 27974-88 Programming language ALGOL 68 - Язык программирования АЛГОЛ 68^[2]
• GOST 27975-88 Programming language ALGOL 68 extended - Язык программирования АЛГОЛ 68 расширенный^[3]

In English Algol68's reverent case statement reads case ~ in ~ out ~ esac, in Cyrillic this reads выб ~ в ~ пибо ~ быв.

[edit] Based on non-English languages

• Aheui – An esoteric programming language similar to Befunge but using Hangul (Korean)
• AMMORIA – Open source object oriented Arabic programming language, designed especially for Arabs.
• Analitik – a Russian-based language for symbolic manipulations with algebraic expressions used in the Soviet series of Mir computers
• ARLOGO – The first open-source Arabic programming language, based on the UCB Logo interpreter
• Chinese BASIC – Chinese-localized BASIC dialects based on Applesoft BASIC; for Taiwanese Apple II clones and the Multitech Microprofessor II
• எழில், Ezhil programming language – A Tamil programming language developed for educational purposes.[2]
• Farsi.NET - A Persian (Farsi, فارسی, پارسی) OO programming language for .NET Framework. It's similar to C# and Delphi.
• Fjölnir – An Icelandic imperative programming language of the 1980s
• FOCAL – Keywords were originally English, but DEC produced versions of FOCAL in several European languages
• 4th Dimension – On local versions, its internal language uses French or German keywords
• Jeem ج – Arabic programming language, based on C++ with simple graphics implementation developed by Dr M A Al-Salka Jeem Website.
• Glagol – A Russian-based programming language similar to Oberon and Pascal
• GOTO++ – A French esoteric programming language loosely based on French and English
• Hindawi Programming System – Indian language set of equivalents for C, C++, lex, yacc, assembly, BASIC, logo, Ada and others for languages such as Hindi, Gujarati, Assamese, and Bangla (with the BangaBhasha version)
• Hindi Programming Language – A Hindi programming language for the .NET Framework
• hForth – A Forth system with an optional Korean keyword set
• HPL – Hebrew Programming Language
• Lexico – A Spanish OO language for teaching .NET programming
• Linotte – A French programming language
• Logo – In one of its Apple II editions was available in French.
• Loughaty – A general-purpose natural Arabic programming language based on a proprietary syntax.
• LSE – Langage Symbolique d'Enseignement, a French, pedagogical, programming language designed in the 1970s at the École Supérieure d'Électricité. A kind of BASIC, but with procedures, functions, local variables, like in Pascal.
• MS Word and MS Excel – Their macro languages used to be localized in non-English languages
• ML4 - a language for client/server database programming, with keywords in English or German [3]
• Nadesiko - a Japanese programming language.^[4]
• Rapira – A Russian-based interpreted procedural programming language with strong dynamic type system
• Robik – A simple Russian-based programming language for teaching basics of programming to children
• SAKO – A language created in the 1950s and nicknamed the "Polish FORTRAN"
• Swaram (Tamil) - A simple, general-purpose and procedural language designed for programming in Tamil
• Superlogo – A Dutch creation for computer-aided instruction, based on Logo
• TI-Calculator BASIC – The 68000 version is localized. Unfortunately, various configuration strings are localized too, preventing direct binary compatibility.
• var'aq – A language based on the constructed Klingon language of Star Trek
• W-Language - French programming language used in the WinDev CASE Tool.
• 1C:Enterprise - Russian framework and language for business applications. English keywords can also be used.

[edit] Languages based on symbols instead of keywords

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. Its predecessor P′′, used to prove assertions about structured programming languages, also used symbols.
• FALSE – A stack-based minimalist esoteric programming language with syntax consisting mainly of single non-alphanumeric characters
• Piet – An art-based programming language
• Plankalkül – An early language developed by German computer pioneer Konrad Zuse; using a symbolic tabular notation
• Velato – A language whose commands are determined by the sequence of notes in a MIDI file
• Whitespace – A language based on whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, and line breaks).

[edit] Modifiable parser syntax

• ChinesePython – A complete translation of the Python scripting language into Chinese
• HyperTalk – The programming language used in Apple's HyperCard; allows translation via custom resources
• Macintosh AppleScript – once allowed for different "dialects" including French and Japanese; however, these were removed in later versions
• Perl – While Perl's keywords and function names are generally in English, it allows modification of its parser to modify the input language, such as in Damian Conway's Lingua::Romana::Perligata module which allows programs to be written in Latin.
• Protium – a language designed to support any possible human language
• Maude - Completely user definable syntax and semantics, within the bounds of the ASCII character set^[5]

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Pigott, Diarmuid (2006). "HOPL, the History of Programming Languages". http://hopl.murdoch.edu.au/. Retrieved 2008-04-14. 

[edit] External links

• SAKO information page at HOPL – By Diarmuid Pigott

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