[SIGCIS-Members] Origin of 'language'?

[Bjorn Westergard]

I think David is spot-on about the dual source (that accords with what I've
read in the sources above).

second, from work in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Grace Hopper, others
> at the Navy, and some in academia (particularly Harvard and MIT) to make
> what were then called "computer codes" and basically required high-level
> knowledge of mathematics, easier to use, and also compilers to
> automatically turn these new forms (including well-known PLs like COBOL and
> FORTRAN) into machine code.
>

It's interesting to consider the progression from the "plans" drawn up for
human computers, to the work of translating plans into plugboard
configurations (for ENIAC-era machines) or the human action of carrying
cards between single-function IBM punchard machinery, to translation from
algorithmic flowcharts (in the Von Neumann style) into machine code (which
was done manually for a period, iirc), to the automation of that
translation (by Hopper et al).

Many of the participants in the Moore School Lectures (e.g. Stibitz) would
have been familiar with the practice of giving natural language
instructions to human computers to accomplish the computational ends later
accomplished by giving "instructions" to machines (classically: calculating
trajectory tables).

On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 11:59 AM, David Golumbia <dgolumbia at gmail.com> wrote:

> t has two sources.
>
> first, the use of "formal language" in logic and philosophy of language in
> the work of Gottlob Frege in the late 19c/early 20c. Frege was clear that
> the "formal languages" he developed were not like human languages, but they
> have nevertheless sometimes been construed this way (although not usually
> by philosophers and logicians).
>
> second, from work in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Grace Hopper,
> others at the Navy, and some in academia (particularly Harvard and MIT) to
> make what were then called "computer codes" and basically required
> high-level knowledge of mathematics, easier to use, and also compilers to
> automatically turn these new forms (including well-known PLs like COBOL and
> FORTRAN) into machine code. They called these "programming languages" in
> part to distinguish them from "computer codes" and because they used
> elements of natural language in their construction. almost immediately,
> people started construing these constructions as some artificial
> meta-category called "language," despite this being an incredibly
> contentious (and basically entirely inaccurate) way of construing things.
> Chomsky's 1950s papers on context-free grammars did not help things.
>
> Have some work-in-progress on this topic as it's a particular pet peeve of
> mine, but at this point pretty far back on the backburner (if anyone wants
> to contribute please drop me a line, as I'm very interested in making it a
> group project).
>
> David
>
> 2014-11-05 4:13 GMT-05:00 Marie Gevers <marie.gevers at unamur.be>:
>
>>  I wonder by whom and when the word 'language' was used for the first
>> time in the framework of computer sciences.
>> Can anybody enlighten me?
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Marie
>> --
>>
>> Prof. Marie d'UDEKEM-GEVERS
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>>
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>>
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>> marie.gevers at unamur.be
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>>
>> http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=bb58g68qxq&lg=fr&pag=919&tab=111&rec=513&frm=368&par=secorig1018&id=5337&flux=83265846
>>
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>
>
> --
> David Golumbia
> dgolumbia at gmail.com
>
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