Non-English-based programming languages are programming languages that do not use keywords taken from or inspired by English vocabulary.
Prevalence of English-based programming languages
The use of the English language in the inspiration for the choice of elements, in particular for reserved words (keywords) in computer programming languages and code libraries, represents a significant trend in the history of language design. According to the HOPL online database of languages, out of the 8,500+ programming languages recorded, roughly 2,400 of them were developed in the United States, 600 in the United Kingdom, 160 in Canada, and 75 in Australia. Thus, over a third of all programming languages have been developed in countries where English is the primary language. This does not account for the usage share of each programming language, situations where a language was developed in a non-English-speaking country but used English to appeal to an international audience (see the case of Python from the Netherlands, Ruby from Japan, and Lua from Brazil), and situations where it was based on another programming language which used English.
International programming languages The concept of international-style programming languages was inspired by the work of British computer scientists Christopher Strachey, Peter Landin, and others. It represents a class of languages of which the line of the algorithmic languages ALGOL was exemplary.
ALGOL 68 ALGOL 68's standard document was published in numerous natural languages. The standard allowed the internationalization of the programming language. On December 20, 1968, the "Final Report" (MR 101) was adopted by the Working Group, then subsequently approved by the General Assembly of UNESCO's IFIP for publication. Translations of the standard were made for Russian, German, French, Bulgarian, and then later Japanese. The standard was also available in Braille. ALGOL 68 went on to become the GOST/ГОСТ-27974-88 standard in the Soviet Union.
GOST 27974-88 Programming language ALGOL 68 – Язык программирования АЛГОЛ 68 GOST 27975-88 Programming language ALGOL 68 extended – Язык программирования АЛГОЛ 68 расширенный In English, Algol68's case statement reads case ~ in ~ out ~ esac. In Russian, this reads выб ~ в ~ либо ~ быв.
Citrine Localization is the core feature of the Citrine Programming Language. Citrine is designed to be translatable to every written human language. For instance the West Frisian language version is called Citrine/FY. Citrine features localized keywords, localized numbers and localized punctuation. Users can translate code files from one language into another using a string-based approach. At the time of writing, Citrine supports 111 human languages. Support is not limited to well-known languages; all natural human languages up to EGIDS-6 are being accepted for inclusion.
Hedy Hedy is an open-source programming language which was developed for programming education. It was designed to be as instructive as possible and as accessible as possible with a few unique features. As of September 2024 it supports 47 different languages, meaning its keywords can be typed in any of those. It supports languages that do not use the Latin alphabet for their keywords and variable names and it also supports more numbering systems than Arabic numerals, like Eastern Arabic numerals. All of these can be used interchangeably. The error messages are quite verbose, explaining what is wrong and what might be a fix.
Scheme While internationalization is not a part of any Scheme standard, the expressiveness and flexibility of the language allows for the addition of internationalization as a library. International Scheme is an open source project to which anyone can contribute a translation. Since translations of Scheme can be loaded as libraries, Scheme programs can be multilingual.
Scratch Scratch is a block-based educational language. The text of the blocks is translated into many languages, and users can select different translations. Unicode characters are supported in variable and list names. (Scratch lists are not stored inside variables the way arrays or lists are handled in most languages. Variables only store strings, numbers, and, with workarounds, Boolean values, while lists are a separate data type that store sequences of these values.) Projects can be "translated" by simply changing the language of the editor, although this does not translate the variable names.
GTlang GTLang – a multilingual programming language designed to allow code to be written and read using native languages rather than primarily English keywords. It supports localized syntax and multiple natural language keyword sets, making it accessible to learners and users familiar with languages such as Spanish, French, Russian, and Japanese. Official documentation and source code are available on the GTLang website and GitHub.
UniversalPython UniversalPython is an experimental multilingual programming language designed to allow programs written in a Python-like syntax to be transpiled into almost any natural human written languages. The project aims to reduce the dependency on English keywords in programming by enabling code translation into various written languages while maintaining compatibility with Python-style semantics. The language and its tooling are available as open-source software on GitHub.
Based on non-English languages
Based on symbols instead of keywords APL – A language based on mathematical notation and abstractions. Brainfuck – A minimalist esoteric programming language, created for the purpose of having the smallest possible compiler. Emojicode – An esoteric language based on Emojis. G – Graphical language used in LabVIEW (not to be confused with G-code). Hoon – A systems programming language for Urbit, compiling to Nock. J – An APL-like language which uses only ASCII special characters and adds function-level programming. Light Pattern – A language which uses a series of photographs rather than text as source code. Mouse – A minimalist language created by Peter Grogono which uses ASCII characters for keywords. Piet – An art-based esoteric programming language. Plankalkül – The first high-level non-von Neumann programming language, designed by Konrad Zuse during World War II in Germany. Whitespace – An esoteric language based on whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, and line breaks).
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