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Non-English-based programming languages

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Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#71

Post by ehal256 »

angersock wrote: post #69
ehal256 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad in what way exactly? Hiragana and Katakana are easier to pick up, because there is more burden placed in learning each individual word. With the baseline investment to learn the Kanji in place, each new word is just a composition of characters and their associated ideas that you already know. You can do the same thing with dictionaries in Japanese or Chinese, though it works best if you use a dictionary that lets…

Oh, so, my point was that using Japanese was a bad example, precisely because two of the three alphabets are used nonlogographically. It is also my understanding that new words and loanwords are spelled out phonetically in those alphabets, instead of grafting some new character into the kanji. "if you use a dictionary that lets you handwrite in the character" I'm unfamiliar with any paper dictionary with that capabil…

I mostly use the dictionary on my phone. I can get by with a paper one, but it's a bit slower.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#72

Post by lcedp »

elementai wrote: post #54
lcedp wrote: post #38

I think it's an awful idea. Let's take Cyrillic languages, Ukrainian/Russian as an example. * Alphabet has 33+ letters, so there is no space left for programmer's favorite symbols on layout: @#$^&{}[]|~` . Yep. * In Math variables' names traditionally are Latin/Greek letters, Cyrillic is used only when teaching kids. Again: switching layout all the time? No, thanks. * Words are simply much longer. And I mean much. In…

And yet there's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1C:Enterprise being a leading software suite in Russia. It's source code terrifies me every time.

Indeed. The one thing worse then programming with Excel formulas.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#73

Post by lcedp »

mistercow wrote: post #59
archivator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, if you (the reader, not Avshalom) haven't read much Russian literature, Russian is the language where you take the first syllable of every word in a long phrase and you make a new word: Министерство здравоохранения => Минздрав (Ministry of Health => Minheal) Министерство юстиции => Минюст (Ministry of Justice => Minjust) etc, etc. As a foreigner, I found that quite peculiar though it doesn't seem to be a…

Ah, so that's where that came from in 1984. It all makes sense.

Yes, it is indeed inspired by that.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#74

Post by angersock »

ehal256 wrote: post #71
angersock wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so, my point was that using Japanese was a bad example, precisely because two of the three alphabets are used nonlogographically. It is also my understanding that new words and loanwords are spelled out phonetically in those alphabets, instead of grafting some new character into the kanji. "if you use a dictionary that lets you handwrite in the character" I'm unfamiliar with any paper dictionary with that capabil…

I mostly use the dictionary on my phone. I can get by with a paper one, but it's a bit slower.

Technology is very handy nowadays. :)

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#75

Post by vorg »

mistercow wrote: post #59
archivator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, if you (the reader, not Avshalom) haven't read much Russian literature, Russian is the language where you take the first syllable of every word in a long phrase and you make a new word: Министерство здравоохранения => Минздрав (Ministry of Health => Minheal) Министерство юстиции => Минюст (Ministry of Justice => Minjust) etc, etc. As a foreigner, I found that quite peculiar though it doesn't seem to be a…

Ah, so that's where that came from in 1984. It all makes sense.

...and nowadays in the US: HomeSec

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#76

Post by Grue3 »

fosap wrote: post #44
lcedp wrote: post #38

I think it's an awful idea. Let's take Cyrillic languages, Ukrainian/Russian as an example. * Alphabet has 33+ letters, so there is no space left for programmer's favorite symbols on layout: @#$^&{}[]|~` . Yep. * In Math variables' names traditionally are Latin/Greek letters, Cyrillic is used only when teaching kids. Again: switching layout all the time? No, thanks. * Words are simply much longer. And I mean much. In…

Sorry, but the thing about the layout is BS. I code with a german layout. You have the use the Alt-Gr modifier a lot, but in the end it's not harder to use than a shift key.

There's a world of difference between German layout (with only a few extra letters) and Cyrillic layout (which completely replaces Latin letters).

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#78

Post by volokoumphetico »

I've been thinking of making a scripting language in Korean alphabet Hangul. The properties of Hangul alphabet allows you to compress multiple consanants and vowels. for example: system.out.println("Hello"); would be in Korean 시.웃.플("안녕하세요"); the Korean words themselves have no coherent meaning but this is how you could distinguish from the programming language and semantic korean language.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#79

Post by volokoumphetico »

quarterto wrote: post #30

I ended up on the (Chinese-language) page for 丙正正¹, a Chinese C++ variant. There was a code example, which I ran through Google Translate to see what would happen. The result is surprisingly readable (and obviously a C-family language)²: Empty chess file :: set comments (character * s, integer n) { If (n> = maximum number of comments) For (; maximum number of annotations ¹ http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%99%E6%AD…

In Korean:

  체스::리플달기 (캐릭터 * ㅅ, 숫자 ㄴ)
    {
     면 (ㄴ >= 최고리플번수)
     용 (; 최고리플번수
What's interesting about Korean alphabet is that you could read and write the code above within a few days of memorizing the Korean alphabet system. Even a non-native Korean speaker can read the above example (you could read about 70% of it as most words are phonetic spellings of english words like Chess = 체스. and write it without speaking a word of Korean if you knew the consonants and alphabets. There's very little Korean word in that example above.

Good luck with writing it in Chinese (memorize all 4000 characters) or Japanese (Kanji, Katakana, Hirakana a clusterfck). If you're gonna build an Asian programming language, Korean alphabet's flexibility makes it easier if not more efficient to express developer intention.

Majority of the english words have been phonetically typed in Korean, there's very little semantic Korean meaning.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#80

Post by volokoumphetico »

ehal256 wrote: post #61
angersock wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that's just fucking horrifying. D: I have a translation of "Design of the Unix Operating System" in Chinese, and take great comfort in the fact that I can still get the gist of all the source code listings--even despite the comments in Chinese. I admire the simplicity of the grammar in Chinese (from the year I took of it in college), but honestly I find logographic languages are kind of gross. EDIT: Fine, fine, I…

Chinese characters (and similar writing systems) do have certain advantages versus alphabetic systems though. The smallest unit of writing has more information embedded in it. You've got a decent chance of guessing the meaning of a compound word if you know some of the characters in it, though not necessarily the pronunciation. With alphabets, it's reversed, if you know all of the pieces of a word, pronunciation is u…

"Chinese characters (and similar writing systems) do have certain advantages versus alphabetic systems though."

You end up with much lower population literacy rate than countries with alphabetic systems. ex) China at 92% vs Korea at 99%.

Hangul was created 600 years ago to counter the difficulties faced by ordinary citizens attempting to memorize the Chinese alphabets. Hangul also by far one of the more exotic alphabet system. This video sums it up nicely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUr9t0bqmc0

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