A Lisp is a good lightweight way of expressing things. You can write a Lisp with any language. The main plus of a Lisp is that you are not burdened by Syntax an

A Lisp is a good lightweight way of expressing things. You can write a Lisp with any language. The main plus of a Lisp is that you are not burdened by Syntax and boilerplate. You can use Metaprogramming in an unconstrained way. We have Lisps written in most popular languages. Python has Hy (newest Lisp on the block), Java has Clojure (currently the most popular one), Erlang has LFE (For BEAM just like Clojure is for JVM), Most scheme (kinda like lightweight lisp with a 100 variants) interpreters are in C. What does that make them? Nothing more than what they already are. What makes Lisp a Lisp is Functional Programming and Syntax where the program itself is treated as Data (Very good for easy macros that transform like a Transformer) and S-Expressions (Every thing is an S-Expression). Not because you can write all others in Lisp.