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Extinction Of Human Languages Affects Programming?

Posted by simoniker on from the look-back-to-look-forward dept.

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."

19 of 626 comments (clear)

  1. This ruins my day. by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    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,
    1. Re:This ruins my day. by CyberSp00k · · Score: 5, Funny

      Babylonian C was a hardware language, silly. It was produced on clay tablets. No one is ever going to trust anything that matters to papyrus.

      --
      Spiritus ex Machina
      "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine."
    2. Re:This ruins my day. by jasoncart · · Score: 5, Funny

      Try archive.org or the Google cache.

    3. Re:This ruins my day. by dankney · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have you checked eBay?

    4. Re:This ruins my day. by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
      Babylonian C was a hardware language, silly. It was produced on clay tablets

      Cuneiform is awl write!

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. You're looking at it the wrong way by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Funny
    The way I see it, programming languages of the future aren't going to evolve from spoken language. Instead, the spoken languages of the future will evolve from programming languages.

    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

    1. Re:You're looking at it the wrong way by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 4, Funny

      shout "BLUE!"

      I think you mean scream BLUE, as in the "Blue scream of Death".

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
    2. Re:You're looking at it the wrong way by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Funny

      The way I see it, programming languages of the future aren't going to evolve from spoken language. Instead, the spoken languages of the future will evolve from programming languages.

      Actually, a girl I occasionally swing dance with is doing a senior thesis for her English degree studying how the way people structure English language has changed since the advent of programming languages. Basically, she's looking at things like whether or not people have begun using things like conditional statements more often in English. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much she has so far -- she tends to change the topic whenever I bring it up.

  3. Languages disappearing?? by bckrispi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmm, that's doubleplus ungood...

    --
    Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
  4. Panini? by John+Girouard · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...strong link between Panini's Grammar and computer science

    I knew sandwiches were related to programming!

  5. Um shutup by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Um shutup by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Funny

      Deparate for what? I do real coding as well. It is people like the famous anonymous coward that really drain the usability of slashdot down. Keep it up though. You might say something funny eventually.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  6. New Languages by knarfling · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  7. Some how... by sofakingl · · Score: 4, Funny

    I get the feeling that Klingon will end up being better preserved than at least half the languages that could potentially disappear.

  8. I Don't Care by rixstep · · Score: 4, Funny

    As long as PASCAL, COBOL, and C++ are extinct too, I don't care.

  9. Obligatory Simpson's by Frennzy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Me extinct English? That's unpossible.

  10. Re:Hard To Believe by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  11. D4 P41|\| !!! by nounderscores · · Score: 4, Funny

    Any questions?

  12. Re:Hard To Believe by E_elven · · Score: 4, Funny

    Except for Perl, which is cuneiform for Gibberish.

    --
    Marxist evolution is just N generations away!