Thread: Importance of english language in programming language

*moved to General Discussions*

I'll be waiting for the results.

Originally Posted by Lea Pi

I hope I will get more than one result

I hope you will interpret the results correctly

I'm not so sure of any of that.

If I, a non English speaker, were to write a new programming language, I'd make sure the grammar was entirely composed of well known English words. And most certainly words that already existed in other languages and to which I wanted to convey similar semantics. And the reason for this was simply so my programming language shared a common lexicon.

And this is not something new. Many well known programming languages were invented by non English speakers.

I can understand why native speakers may feel more inclined to downplay the importance of a common lexicon in their own language. But I also think you are the least qualified to appreciate the importance of a unified set of words for the simple reason it's been in your face for decades. But for non native speakers, the benefits are more obvious.

A single language lexicon across many programming languages facilitates learning of more than one programming language tremendously and removes a lot of unnecessary memorization. This everyone can agree. What you don't seem to realize is that the fact that language was chosen to be the English language was of a great benefit to a large part of the world, for whom English is a common second language taught as early as the primary school. Programming languages keywords semantics are easier to grasp because the language is generally understood by most technically oriented people across the world.

So for non native speakers the question "why are programming languages in English?" has a different meaning. Because if they weren't we would have an hard time learning them, just as you would. The question has palpable pedagogical implications. But also implementation ones. In my own native language -- as well as those of many others -- there's no historical precedent that could help generalize a good set of keywords in our respective native tongues. In many cases, there's not even a recognizable, unambiguous, and universally acceptable substitute for what are today well establish programming English-based concepts and keywords. Most technical books published in non-english languages often resort to the English nomenclature, for instance.

So these concepts and these keywords are more English than you are making them out to be.

And that is also why the article linked falls flat on its face. Microsoft has in fact created a few non-english grammars for their .Net programming language ecosystem. It's a complete disaster because naturally, not only is this hard to accept by native seasoned developers, but it also raises many questions as to the validity of some of the keyword choices made and completely turns upside down the idea of universal teaching of programming languages.