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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."

11 of 626 comments (clear)

  1. YOU COCKS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Human Languages. What is it all about... is it good, or is it whack?

  2. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    fp... or worse.. =\

  3. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    First xml post

  4. Re:This ruins my day. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Damn boy! I had you on my friends list because you were actually funny. And now this...

  5. Value of loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    and with every language lost, there is a possibility that we may have missed an opportunity at improving the underlying heuristics

    Every person who starves to death could have been the next Einstein or Ghandi, but none of you technophiles care about that. Instead, whine about your precious programming languages. Sickening.

  6. Vote for Ralph Nader for President in 2004 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Say No to Bush and Bush Lite(John Kerry).
    Vote for a true progressive and man of the people.
    Not for either super-rich Yalie .

  7. I'VE DISCOVERED BUGGERING by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    and I like it!

    Anybody interested?

  8. Re:This ruins my day. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    Mulligan!
    ;)

  9. GOATSE PIC IN ZIP FILE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    n/t

    1. Re:GOATSE PIC IN ZIP FILE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Yeah, but is it a goatse .bmp that crashes IE 5.0?!!!

  10. Re:Snow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    In Alaska, the Eskimos have 15 different words for snow
    How many different words do Eskimos have for "Yellow Snow"?