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Extinction Of Human Languages Affects Programming?
Tanmay Kudyadi writes "An article from NewScientist.com reports that half of all human languages will have disappeared by the end of the century, as smaller societies are assimilated into national and global cultures. This may be great news if one is looking at a common standard for communication, but it dosen't help those designing the next generation of programming languages. For example, there's an extremely strong link between Panini's Grammar and computer science (PDF link), and with every language lost, there is a possibility that we may have missed an opportunity at improving the underlying heuristics."
Well.. that dashes all hope I had for finding a papyrus re-issue of "Babylonian C for Dummies". It's been out of print for millennia.
Trolling is a art,
In 200 years, There'll be 637 different words for "bug" in the our universal spoken language, ESPERA~1. To express confusion, a speaker will slap his hands over his face, stand stock still, shout "BLUE!", and wait for the other person to walk away.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Hmm, that's doubleplus ungood...
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
You didn't happen to be visiting England did you?
...strong link between Panini's Grammar and computer science
I knew sandwiches were related to programming!
How exactly is C or Pascal based off a spoken language?
....
while (alive)
while (lust && !state(HUNGER)) {
seek_women(HIGH_PRIORITY);
if (found) {
sex_up(BYPAIRS)
sleep();
} else {
sex_up(MANUALLY);
watch(CARTOONS);
}
}
if (state(HUNGER))
{
seek_food();
if (found) {
chow_down_like_no_tommorow();
} else {
slaughter(NEIGHBOUR);
chow_down_like_is_tommorow();
}
}
}
Oh I get it
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
sign language and I can guarantee that NY'ers will never part with it. Now of course programming with just the middle finger isn't as productive, but it works none the less ..|..
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
On the plus side, there are new languages showing up all the time. Klingon, Vulcan, Romulan, Cardassian ....
Imagine the programming possibilities!!!
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
We have known that language is an imperfect form of communication. The greeks knew it (hence the god Rumor.) The Taoists knew it. In 6000 yeras of recorded history we have not found a perfect language. If it doesn't work for huminty, why would computers be any different, where context is implied in almost every respect?
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I get the feeling that Klingon will end up being better preserved than at least half the languages that could potentially disappear.
As long as PASCAL, COBOL, and C++ are extinct too, I don't care.
i pr3dic7 7h@ in 4 100 j34rz 0r s0, 90 p3rc3n7 0f 7h3 w0r1d p0pu1@i0n wi11 5p34k 7h3 n0b13 4nd b34u7iphu1 14n9u493 of 1337 5p3ak
If you have a computer that can be programmed in English, please share. I can finally quit my day job and do something useful other than constantly have to translate between human thought and machine symbology.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
with a one-bit bus (our mouth) that's going to be pretty slow.
I suppose we could add ten fingers, two eyes, and three toes to the mouth, and get a 16 bit bus, but that's going to be pretty hard to process. Not to mention it will be half duplex at best, since you'd need your eyes to see the other person communicating. Not to mention that a bit shift could very easily have you firmly planting your foot in your mouth.
Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week.
Me extinct English? That's unpossible.
if C was good enough for Linus, is good enough for everything else!!
It's called Assembly. Assembly is what lowly humans use because their meat-brains can't keep track of all those 0's an 1's.
Hey baby, wanna Kill All Humans?
Fer ah=1 ta 5
ya'll gosub thingamajig(ah)
iffen error then goto goldangit
next ah
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Personally I am still expecting Latin to make a huge comeback...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
cobol would become extinct.
"Seriously, I'm teaching myself Japanese now, and you have no idea how frustrating it is to learn that one word can have MANY different meanings, all based on context, and there are no hard rules as to how its used"
That sounds pretty cool... Oh wait I don't want to confuse you with words that have different meanings based on context.
"Let us ADD our INCOME to our CAPITAL, as the squirrel adds to its autumn horde. Aye, there's the SUM that makes a TOTAL WEALTH. 3000 DUCATS? Is this an EXPENDITURE I see before me? Marry 'tis best 'twere TAKEN AWAY, like as the magpie taketh away the jewel of great price. But hist! Here cometh the INTEREST, and 'tis of no mean interest, i' faith! I had lief ADD a percentage of this, than clasp my fair Rosalind's spleen."
In all reality, as many people have pointed out, there is a large chunk of poetry written in various programming languages, and the inverse is true as well; many human languages are used in forms that are human "programs". Instead of being stored on harddrives, they are published in cookbooks and engineering texts.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
It's official. I feel like the biggest dork on this comment thread. I am a computer geek and i've taken Sanskrit and actually read Panini. Please guys, promise me we won't talk about women next!
/Unfunny, obscure attempt at Canadian political humour
Any questions?
Every time I try to comprehend the parent post, I get:
ungood is not an lvalue
Some people are just so hard to understand!
edge, bridge, or chopsticks - you'd be in bizarre circumstances to not understand which one is being referred to
Watch out for that bridge!!!
What bridge?
AAAAAaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!
It wouldn't have been any use because it wasn't Y0K compliant.
Too right mate! That's why us blokes still speak Strine. Crikey!
If he was able to understand the English that was spoken, he was most likely in Scandinavia.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Except for Perl, which is cuneiform for Gibberish.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Operators function as verbs. Variables and constants function as nouns.
I won't be happy with any programming language until I can split an infinitive in it.
Best Slashdot comment ever
Atha sabdaanusaasanam.
which interprets and translates (by me):
atha sabda anu-sa-asanam
here-topic (is) sound detail-layout
I am not sure if you got that right... Asanam= Ass (also sit down etc.) . Also anu = near, companion etc.
So from the way you split the words up, I think it will be translated as "So is the sound from the Ass" or non-poetically- "Thus is the way of speaking from the Ass"
Now if it meant Atha Sabda Anusaasanam - It would probably mean "Thus is the teaching of sound" (Anusaasanam -Instruction)
Stupid Sanskrit- Way too complicated to be a living language, It better stayed dead (or Zombie as it is now).
Funniest thing is, German is almost like that. You can telescope 10-20 words into one and probably write a full paragraph in one word. Not to mention "the she carrot was by the male bee eaten" problem.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
The word "algorithm" encripts the name of the first programmer - Al Gore ;-).
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
To boldly code what no man has coded before...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming