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Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

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Re: Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

#101

Post by numpad0 »

zahlman wrote: post #83
parksb wrote: post #65

Great work :) If you're interested in Korean programming languages, there's a functional one called 'Nuri': https://github.com/suhdonghwi/nuri/ Rather than just translating keywords, it lets you write code that actually uses Korean grammar. For example, "10을 5로 나누고 출력하다" (literally "10 by 5 divide and print") outputs "2". You might already know this, but there's also a Korean programming language called 'Yaksok'. Her…

I know barely any Korean vocab and can't read Hangul nor am I set up to type it. But is "yaksok", perchance, cognate with Japanese 約束 (やくそく)?

There's a significant amount of Japanese loanwords in modern Korean due to Japanese annexation(1910-1945/1965), as well as in modern Chinese to much lesser extent.

These aren't an indication of a shared vocabulary or ancestry, just loanwords for concepts that were novel and scientific by victorian standards.

Re: Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

#102

Post by b3orn »

whacked_new wrote: post #77
anigbrowl wrote: post #50

I wonder why there are not more programming languages not only with non-English keywords, but with different grammars. For example, if X then Y and many other constructions closely follow English grammar, but when you study other languages you quickly become away of many other possible constructions.

I'm a little sad that VSO languages didn't start the computing revolution because if they did, we would all be writing LISP. But instead, we are relegated to Python and JavaScript!

Considering that Korean is an SOV language it would've been interesting to see that factor into the design of this programming language.

Re: Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

#106

Post by hangil131 »

Hello, interesting project. I’m a native Korean speaker, so I wanted to share a quick perspective from Korean.

Nouns translate fairly naturally, but standalone verb commands in English need more care. In English, a verb like "find" can stand alone, but in Korean a verb usually needs an ending, and different endings can sound quite different or awkward depending on context. For example, "find" could become 찾다, 찾기, or 찾음, but those are not interchangeable.

Plural forms are also tricky. English distinguishes strongly between singular and plural, but Korean usually does not. Explicit plurals like “단어들” often sound unnatural unless the individuality of each item is important.And it feel same with "단어목록"

Overall, this is a very interesting project with real potential. I think it could become even stronger if it considers the structural differences between English and Korean, rather than treating it as simple keyword substitution.

Re: Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

#107

Post by yorwba »

zdragnar wrote: post #67
xodn348 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a deep knowledge that even Korean-natives would not know. I will add this site as a reference to Github. I am glad that I have you as a supporter!

Really? That's how it was taught to me by Korean teachers at University. Even if it isn't daily-useful bit of info, it's such a fundamental component of the written form that I would have expected it to be common knowledge.

It's part of the official origin story that was published alongside the introduction of the script, so students will learn about it at some point long after they're already fluent readers and writers, and then promptly forget about this bit of trivia. (Do you remember that A is an upside-down ox head?) It probably doesn't help that the original explanation covers Middle Korean for an audience literate in Chinese: https://ko.wikisource.org/wiki/%ED%9B%88%EB%AF%BC%EC%A0%95%E...

Meanwhile, "Korean writing is so easy and logical you can learn it in no time at all" has become a meme to the point where I suspect the number of people who've been exposed to the meme and don't remember a single character might be larger than the number of Koreans who've heard about the tongue shape thing and still remember it.

Also, ㄹ is obviously anatomically impossible for human tongues. It does however closely resemble similar letters in some Brahmic scripts. I'm partial to ʼPhags-pa ꡙ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Hangul#%CA%BCPhags-p...

Re: Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

#108

Post by WillAdams »

xodn348 wrote: post #48
WillAdams wrote: post #38

Have you looked into whether there are any Hanja (Chinese characters) which would be sufficiently expressive to warrant supporting as an alternative way to represent keywords? Perhaps look to APL for efficient ways to represent math concepts/structures?

I personally don't know Hanja at all, and I think that's common for most younger Koreans. Korean did borrow from Chinese characters historically, but it's similar to how English was influenced by Dutch, German, French, and Latin — each language developed independently. Korean has its own pure Korean words (순우리말) as its foundation, and borrowed some Chinese-origin vocabulary on top of that. Hangul was specifically cre…

Yes, but there is a potential for increased expressibility with Chinese characters which I've always found evocative and beautiful --- perhaps if there is some keyword which is long/awkward a character might be a better fit? Or would it work for a user to choose Chinese characters for module names? But also yes, I'm an old-fashioned sort of person as my kids are constantly pointing out, and moreover, it's not like I ever did much of anything w/ the 500 characters which I memorized after my graduation proficiency test (pulled them out for a couple of projects in college...)

\begin{quotation}

\emph{The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.}

--- \textsc{Confucius}

\end{quotation}

Very glad /u/faitswulff mentioned Wenyan (though I'm bummed that there are only simplified Chinese and Japanese translations).

Re: Show HN: Han – A Korean programming language written in Rust

#110

Post by WillAdams »

faitswulff wrote: post #74
WillAdams wrote: post #38

Have you looked into whether there are any Hanja (Chinese characters) which would be sufficiently expressive to warrant supporting as an alternative way to represent keywords? Perhaps look to APL for efficient ways to represent math concepts/structures?

If you’re interested in Chinese characters, there’s https://github.com/wenyan-lang/wenyan

That is _very_ cool! Starred!

Maybe one day someone will write a Korean translation for the book....

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