A natural language is one that evolves naturally like English, often over centuries.
The opposite is artificial languages which are mainly designed by homo sapiens and are likely to be constrained by usage rules; an application could be crafted to create artificial languages. Esperanto is a fine example of an artificial language. Also Klingon. "Programming languages" is a loose usage of the concept of "language" ‐- one could not write a "1984" with any programming language. Naturnal and artificial languages can communicate ideas between most homo sapiens while only a subset of homo sapiens are able to use programming languages to guide the actions of computers. Ken Iverson titled his Turing Award lecture "Notation as a tool of thought"; it's not my suggestion to stop talking about programming languages, just be aware of the distinction. On Sun., Jan. 17, 2021, 11:00 Raul Miller, <[email protected]> wrote: > A natural language is a language which people use to talk with each other, > > In this context, an artificial language is a set of symbols which > people use to configure machines. > > I hope this helps, > > -- > Raul > > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 10:50 AM Justin Paston-Cooper > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > All languages are fixed over a given Planck time. What is it for a > language > > to be artificial or not? Can it be objectively proved either way? > > > > On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 at 18:43, Hauke Rehr <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Natural languages are flexible. Recipients of messages are > > > forgiving, trying to understand what you meant. > > > The rules are dynamic and at times even local or personal. > > > > > > This is much different from many artificial languages, > > > in particular from programming languages. > > > They have one set of fixed rules* (even if they are rules > > > for declaring rules); the interpreter/compiler can only > > > be told to handle a list of common mistakes but cannot > > > intelligently try to understand anything never seen before. > > > > > > Therefore I think learning should be at least somewhat different, too. > > > (And I used to learn even foreign languages by first studying > > > their grammar, then learning a thesaurus and then applying them, > > > building hopefully correct sentences. When a Spanish teacher began > > > talking to us in Spanish from the start, I was overchallenged.) > > > > > > * yes, they are evolving – but for any version, they’re fixed > > > > > > Am 17.01.21 um 16:27 schrieb Henry Rich: > > > > It gives them a wrong mental model of rank, which they must unlearn > > > > later. This can have serious consequences, particularly if they get > > > > the idea that u"n is 'like u with the rank set to n' (if that were > true, > > > > u"1"_1 would be the same as u"_ 1, which it isn't). > > > > > > > > Ken thought you should learn J like you learn a natural language, by > > > > seeing and saying, and creating your own rules internally. I think > he > > > > was wrong when it comes to verb rank. The idea is so new, and so > > > > subtle, that users left to themselves get it wrong. I had one very > > > > bright student who, discovering that (,1) + 1 2 3 gave an error, > found > > > > that +/ would not give an error, and ever after applied / to every > > > > verb. He created his own rule, you see. > > > > > > > > Henry Rich > > > > > > > > On 1/17/2021 12:24 AM, Raul Miller wrote: > > > >> Does it really cost them that much? > > > >> > > > >> Given that beginner problems generally do not involve > multi-megabytes > > > >> of data, I mean... > > > >> > > > >> Thanks, > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > ---------------------- > > > mail written using NEO > > > neo-layout.org > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
