4 ms·

"about 2.6 billion people (36% of the world population) use the Latin alphabet, about 1.3 billion people (18%) use the Chinese script, about 1 billion people (1

by keepper 10y ago

"about 2.6 billion people (36% of the world population) use the Latin alphabet, about 1.3 billion people (18%) use the Chinese script, about 1 billion people (14%) use the Devanagari script (India)"[1] It'll be interesting to see how the Latin alphabet preference in computer languages changes over time. I'm sure whole different paradigms may be possible in different scripts. And people complain about the differences between java and python now... Imagine python vs Aheui or similar lol [1]http://www.worldstandards.eu/alphabets/ http://www.worldstandards.eu/alphabets/

chickenfries 10y ago
> I'm sure whole different paradigms may be possible in different scripts. This is like Sapir–Whorf for programming languages. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) I'm skeptical that programming languages in other scripts would "discover" new programming paradigms inaccessible to languages written with the latin alphabet. Programming languages hardly follow any rules of english grammar, despite most of them being in English.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  I'm also skeptical. The "strong" claims of Whorfianism, that testable things like color perception depend on ones language, have mostly been falsified. I see no reason why programming of computers would be different. Are some languages structured such that it's easier for its native speakers are better at certain programming tasks? Sure, that's plausible. I can imagine that e.g. German programmers would be better at keeping two-page goto-riddled DO loops in their heads. But would Spanish programmers find it impossible? Hardly.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >I'm also skeptical. The "strong" claims of Whorfianism, that testable things like color perception depend on ones language, have mostly been falsified. That's not entirely settled, but even so, those to me are the least interesting (and least expected to be true) aspects of Whorfianism. The social aspects of language influence are much more interesting. That said, I don't see programming languages in other, err, languages discovering any novel ways of programming. That's mostly because in the end they always should just translate to the underlying CPU model and CS concepts, and those are math, they don't change culturally.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      > The social aspects of language influence are much more interesting. Sure, but it's pretty much impossible to make a falsifiable hypothesis in this area that can actually be (ethically) tested. Like, how do you separate the effect of having Japanese as your primary language from the effect of growing up in a Japanese culture (whether actually in Japan or not)? > [CS concepts] are math, they don't change culturally Agree.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >Like, how do you separate the effect of having Japanese as your primary language from the effect of growing up in a Japanese culture (whether actually in Japan or not)? I guess by using people from bilingual societies, who speak one or the other language within the same culture.
seibelj 10y ago
You can swap the latin characters for other symbols, but I'm not sure how it will fundamentally change anything. Advances come from thinking of how to formulate abstract concepts differently, like procedural vs. functional programming. The letters themselves are just part of the specification. Perhaps people whose language is radically different from romance languages will approach programming differently because of that, and invent something new.
tornadoboy55 10y ago
It won't change because of tremendous legacy inertia. Everything from assembly to scripting languages are in Latin-English. All kernels are Latin-English. CS is taught around the globe as a 100% English major usually. Our first humanoid AI will almost certainly think in 'English' and speak English.
- aj7 10y ago
  Fat Freddy's cat to a friend cat, while they are watching the dog catcher round up dogs (headed for the gas chamber.) FFC: He does cats, too. Friend cat: That couldn't happen in America!
- kazimuth 10y ago
  The language of science has shifted before; I don't think it's reasonable to assume it won't again. Then again, English might stay around as a, well, legacy language. I could imagine someone a few hundred years from now studying archaic english, in preparation for a dive into the kernel or whatever. Then again, computer translation will probably have gotten good enough that it won't be necessary.
  - Baeocystin 10y ago
    Honestly, I doubt that it will, barring some civilization-scale catastrophe that resets global progress. I'm not being hyperbolic. As the world has shrunk, and intercommunication has increased, the benefits of being able to access the dominant languages have increased dramatically, and part of that process is fixing what is dominant. English already has the unique distinction of having more ESL speakers than native ones, and has become the lingua franca of world commerce. (And let's pause for a minute to enjoy the incorporation of the phrase 'lingua franca' in to the English corpus, too. I do love how English is completely shameless about taking whatever it wants from other languages to add to itself.)
    - desdiv 10y ago
      >(And let's pause for a minute to enjoy the incorporation of the phrase 'lingua franca' in to the English corpus, too. I do love how English is completely shameless about taking whatever it wants from other languages to add to itself.) The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary. -James Nicoll
lifthrasiir 10y ago
For the case of Aheui, it is essentially a Hangul-branded version of Befunge [1] (or if you are interested in the history of esolangs, it is actually more like Orthogonal [2] but Aheui didn't really derive from it). Besides from the fact that Aheui's usage of Hangul is novel, I wouldn't consider it a fundamental paradigm shift. [1] https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge [2] https://esolangs.org/wiki/Orthogonal https://esolangs.org/wiki/Orthogonal

by keepper 10y ago

chickenfries 10y ago

> I'm sure whole different paradigms may be possible in different scripts. This is like Sapir–Whorf for programming languages. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) I'm skeptical that programming languages in other scripts would "discover" new programming paradigms inaccessible to languages written with the latin alphabet. Programming languages hardly follow any rules of english grammar, despite most of them being in English.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
I'm also skeptical. The "strong" claims of Whorfianism, that testable things like color perception depend on ones language, have mostly been falsified. I see no reason why programming of computers would be different. Are some languages structured such that it's easier for its native speakers are better at certain programming tasks? Sure, that's plausible. I can imagine that e.g. German programmers would be better at keeping two-page goto-riddled DO loops in their heads. But would Spanish programmers find it impossible? Hardly.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >I'm also skeptical. The "strong" claims of Whorfianism, that testable things like color perception depend on ones language, have mostly been falsified. That's not entirely settled, but even so, those to me are the least interesting (and least expected to be true) aspects of Whorfianism. The social aspects of language influence are much more interesting. That said, I don't see programming languages in other, err, languages discovering any novel ways of programming. That's mostly because in the end they always should just translate to the underlying CPU model and CS concepts, and those are math, they don't change culturally.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    > The social aspects of language influence are much more interesting. Sure, but it's pretty much impossible to make a falsifiable hypothesis in this area that can actually be (ethically) tested. Like, how do you separate the effect of having Japanese as your primary language from the effect of growing up in a Japanese culture (whether actually in Japan or not)? > [CS concepts] are math, they don't change culturally Agree.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Like, how do you separate the effect of having Japanese as your primary language from the effect of growing up in a Japanese culture (whether actually in Japan or not)? I guess by using people from bilingual societies, who speak one or the other language within the same culture.

seibelj 10y ago

You can swap the latin characters for other symbols, but I'm not sure how it will fundamentally change anything. Advances come from thinking of how to formulate abstract concepts differently, like procedural vs. functional programming. The letters themselves are just part of the specification. Perhaps people whose language is radically different from romance languages will approach programming differently because of that, and invent something new.

tornadoboy55 10y ago

It won't change because of tremendous legacy inertia. Everything from assembly to scripting languages are in Latin-English. All kernels are Latin-English. CS is taught around the globe as a 100% English major usually. Our first humanoid AI will almost certainly think in 'English' and speak English.

aj7 10y ago
Fat Freddy's cat to a friend cat, while they are watching the dog catcher round up dogs (headed for the gas chamber.) FFC: He does cats, too. Friend cat: That couldn't happen in America!
kazimuth 10y ago
The language of science has shifted before; I don't think it's reasonable to assume it won't again. Then again, English might stay around as a, well, legacy language. I could imagine someone a few hundred years from now studying archaic english, in preparation for a dive into the kernel or whatever. Then again, computer translation will probably have gotten good enough that it won't be necessary.
- Baeocystin 10y ago
  Honestly, I doubt that it will, barring some civilization-scale catastrophe that resets global progress. I'm not being hyperbolic. As the world has shrunk, and intercommunication has increased, the benefits of being able to access the dominant languages have increased dramatically, and part of that process is fixing what is dominant. English already has the unique distinction of having more ESL speakers than native ones, and has become the lingua franca of world commerce. (And let's pause for a minute to enjoy the incorporation of the phrase 'lingua franca' in to the English corpus, too. I do love how English is completely shameless about taking whatever it wants from other languages to add to itself.)
  - desdiv 10y ago
    >(And let's pause for a minute to enjoy the incorporation of the phrase 'lingua franca' in to the English corpus, too. I do love how English is completely shameless about taking whatever it wants from other languages to add to itself.) The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary. -James Nicoll

lifthrasiir 10y ago

For the case of Aheui, it is essentially a Hangul-branded version of Befunge [1] (or if you are interested in the history of esolangs, it is actually more like Orthogonal [2] but Aheui didn't really derive from it). Besides from the fact that Aheui's usage of Hangul is novel, I wouldn't consider it a fundamental paradigm shift. [1] https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge [2] https://esolangs.org/wiki/Orthogonal https://esolangs.org/wiki/Orthogonal