What programming language is most like natural language? [closed]

Answer 1

Cobol is close to English as it gets

I believe Logo is also not too far from the English language

Answer 2

What we normally call "pseudo-code" is very, very close to Pascal. That probably doesn't make it particularly close to natural English, but if it weren't simpler than most langauges, we wouldn't write pseudo-code at all (we'd just write code).

Answer 3

Although not exactly what you asked for, there are languages that accomplish what you want, but from the other direction. Lojban, for example, is a language made to be used as a natural language, but without ambiguity.

Lojban (pronounced [ˈloʒban]) is a constructed, syntactically unambiguous human language based on predicate logic.

Answer 4

I believe your question is based on a fallacy. Programming is not mainly about translating from human to computer language. It is understanding technical problems and designing programs that is hard, typing in the code is a minor part. Learning a programming language won't make someone a programmer any more than learning musical notation will make them a composer.

That said, if you write at a high enough level in almost any language and spend a few minutes explaining syntax, you can communicate the gist of a piece of code to a dedicated non-programer. Conversely, a precise enough natural language specification can sometimes be translated into high level functions (although people are rarely willing to put in the effort to write such a spec.)

Answer 5

Well, Ruby and Python are supposed to be fairly close. Ruby even goes to the length of adding special keywords that simulate real life. Such as the unless keyword, etc.

Of course, one you type real code in either of those 2 languages, it's not really like natural language, but then again what is?

Answer 6

Well natural language is equivocal, and takes a bit more than a literal linear reading to understand. But that being granted, VB.NET is getting close in some constructs. Closest I've seen.

For Loop in VB.NET

For i = 0 To 2
  'loop time!
Next i

It's about as "natural" as I've seen without being too verbose.