# Talk:Formal language

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## Failure in "Operations on languages"-chart

According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursively_enumerable_language

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_language

RE-languages are not closed under set difference, recursive ones are. In the charts its the other way round.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.205.161.224 (talk) 17:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I want to fix this. Can you tell me where it is in the article? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

just fixed it myself, I wanted to be sure because I'm no native english speaking person...

sections edit-url:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Formal_language&action=edit&section=5 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.205.170.133 (talk) 18:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought you were talking about set difference, which I don't see in the article. I have to think for a while about string substitution; I don't see why there is a problem with either recursive or r.e. languages there, but I might ahve misread the definition of substitution. Could you explain briefly or give some counterexample to help me understand? — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

well, maybe I got confused myself - I just hit the undo for now - its already pretty late over here... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.158.217.129 (talk) 22:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

## Formal language vs. natural language

What are the differences between the formal languages and the natural languages? It cannot be grammar solely, as many natural languages such as English have their own defined grammar. --Abdull (talk) 15:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

They are really totally different things, only vaguely similar. A formal language only consists of strings over a fixed alphabet, and the meaning (if one even exists) is not part of the formal language itself. A natural language is more than a collection of strings. It's even more than a structured collection of strings (written language) plus a structured collection of phoneme strings (spoken language), in many, many variants (dialects), with various correspondences between them. The meaning is also part of the language. And in some sense it's less than a formal language because for many strings it's not entirely clear whether they are grammatical or not. Some examples of borderline cases w.r.t. to the English language: "Let's write a poëm." "Have you been in 北京市 recently?" "Ceci n'est pas un double-entendre." "Ye five-and-twenty year-olde archaism." Or take any sentence that consists entirely of standard English words and follows the rules of English grammar precisely – but consists of more words than there are atoms in the universe. For a formal language, for each of these strings it would have to be decided once and for all whether they are part of the language or not. Hans Adler 15:35, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll probably keep repeating this until I'm blue in the face: I disagree with your formulation. A formal language is a language with a formal (i.e. mathematical) definition; a language (formal language theory) is what this article and your reply here are devoted to, but such a thing is usually just called a language, not a formal language, and it is a related, but clearly different notion in any case. The two notions should be clearly separated because most of the discussion on this page arises from confusing the two; as far as I'm concerned, they should have their own separate articles (full of cross-references). Rp (talk) 11:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I could make sense of your post by looking at your archived posts, but I am not sure your distinction is as important as you are making it. It happens all the time in mathematics that a certain type of structure is studied in a pure form, but also arises in applications, where it carries extra structure and extra meaning that is important for the application but not necessarily reflected by use of a different name. I can see some arguments for the POV that a language in the sense of formal language theory is the pure structure, while a formal language, as it arises in other contexts, is the applied thing which is typically a language in the former sense plus extra structure of one kind or another. Under this POV formal languages would not have a precise mathematical definition (unless it is something like "language plus arbitrary extra structure"). But I have never seen any source that discusses both languages and formal languages and distinguishes them. Therefore it seems more natural to me to assume that "language" is an abbreviation for "formal language" which is generally used in formal language theory, in the same way that in some contexts "group" is an abbreviation for "algebraic group" or "topological group". Hans Adler 12:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree, except that it's the other way round: formal language theory is devoted solely to studying the possible form of language and how to describe it, which explains its extremely narrow definition of language, excluding structure and excluding meaning, which are intrinsic properties of language in every other context of use of the term that I've ever seen. If you haven't been subjected to formal language theory, this distinction is nearly impossible to grasp; if you have, it should be easier, except that computer scientists and mathematicians tend to confuse formal definitions of terms with everyday use of the same terms. I believe this (lack of) distinction is what creates and recreates the confusing discussions on this talk page and the confounding of notions within the article itself. Rp (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I always thought a formal language was a set of strings over a finite alphabet, and of course there are $2^{\aleph_0}$ such sets, most of them undefinable in the sense of definable real number. Natural language is completely different, and as a concept it's more from biology or psychology than mathematics. There's no way to pin down exactly what English is, not because it's mathematically undefinable, but because we each have our own idiolect that is constantly changing. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I really think it depends on the context in which you encounter the term. Rp (talk) 23:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

## Operations on other languages

The table of operations on languages is helpful but limited to "classical" formal languages (REG, DCFL, CFL, CSL, R, RE). It would be nice to include other classes of languages as well:

## The term 'formal system' should do =

I know I'm flogging an archived horse, but the present text is still assuming logic as the context if use in places. In particular, I don't think the term 'formal system' is widely used outside that context and the term "well-formed formula" is specific to logic (although the concept applies elsewhere). Rp (talk) 13:45, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

## Form

What does "form" exactly/literally mean as it appears in the expression of "formal language"?

What is the difference between form and shape?

In the very beginning of this article, these questions should be answered. And a link to Wiktionary is not enough. --98.196.232.128 (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

"Form" may have many meanings unrelated to "shape", and "formal" does not usually mean anything close to "shapely". See Formalism (mathematics) for something closer to the meaning in context. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I read that article and many othersrelated to it. Nop! I still don't understand. And it is still necessary at the beginning of (this) article.
By the way, I know shape and form are two different concepts. But the distinction is neccessary for the sake of the article. In many languages, "shape" and "form" are carried by same word.--98.196.232.128 (talk) 01:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the point of explaining the etymology at the start of the article. We are not a dictionary. And in any case it is not necessary to understand "form" in order to understand "formal language" any more than it is necessary to understand "beg" in order to understand "beginning". It's just irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I recently added an introduction to the Dutch pendant of this article (try Google Translate if you don't read Dutch) to make the relationship between the different uses of the term formal language clearer, and I think doing the same thing here would help avoid a lot of the confusion we're seeing here. What do you think? Rp (talk) 14:49, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Mr. David Eppstein, if you ever read a few Wikipedia articles, you will notice that most of them has a section describing the meaning of the words appearing in the title (name of the phenomenon). If you ever read a few more articles, you will notice that even etymologies are given. So, the people you call as "we" -I think- are not Wikipedists.
Rp, thank you for Dutch Wiki article. It's very kind of you putting the link in Google Translate. I read Dutch article in English. It is far better than this English one. I started to understand. Thanks to you and Google translate.
One interesting expression was this: "a formal language is an artificial language whose shape and often the meaning exactly is recorded". So, here comes "shape"!!! Who says shape is irrelevant? There is also an expression: "The formal language theory ... is dedicated to the study of mathematical formalisms for the form ( syntax ) of expressions in formal languages ​​to ...". Therefore form is "the shape of a language which are also called syntax".
Therefore, we have a definition for "form" as it appears in "formal" of the "formal language." Since "formal" means "relating to the form of something", the menaing of the word "form" is essential for the validity and understandibility of this article.
Finally, I suggest putting my definition of "form" in the beginning of the article. But English is not my first language. Therefore, a possible better definition might be even better.--98.196.232.128 (talk) 02:21, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll try a real translation. Rp (talk) 09:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)