Over the years, I have been thinking why did the inventors of different programming language, did not use natural language (english) as a means of writing programs that computer can understand.

What is a Language

Language can be seem as the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Human communication

See programming language as not only communicating to a computer but also communicating to yourself or another programmer.

Spoken or written

Programming language are not spoken but written.

Structured and conventional way

Most programming language have it own flow and way things ought to be done. Basically we are talking about the programming language Syntax and Semantics of the language

OK, let see how we can use natural english language to make sense of some programming language keywords.

class

Coming from an OOP background in Java as newbies, I get to ask why is it call Class.

Class: [natural english language meaning] a set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality

        public class Car {          // Car is a thing, OK this make sense
            private String color;  //  Having some property
            private String model;
        }

public and private

Public: [natural english meaning] an open view of something
Private closed to a particular entity, not for every one

    public class Person {
        public String name; // OK this is can been see by another program or class
        private int age; // OK no program or class can touch this.
         /*
                we are saying our `name` property can be modified and visible to any one,
                but the `age` property can't be accessed by anybody but just me alone.
        */
    }

arrays []

Array [natural english meaning]

• a large group of things or people, especially one that is attractive or causes admiration or has been positioned in a particular way
• is an impressive display or range of a particular type of thing.

Array a big part of most programming language, almost any programming language talk a lot about arrays
With this in mind, let see how we build arrays in any programming language, remember it is a large group of things (also know as collections of things).

var laptops  = ["Mac","HP", "Dell"]
var numbers =  [1,2,3,4,5]

friends  = ["Peter","Mary", "Faiz"]
website =  ["github.com", "facebook.com", "meduim.com"]

split

Split [natural english meaning] dividing a particular object into two or more groups

In python and javascript we see this programming word split, this word is the name of a method of a string object.

people = "Bob,Alice,James,John,Peter"
names = people.split(',') # OK break this long word into some group of words
print name   # ['Bob', 'Alice', 'James', 'John', 'Peter'] 

var people = "Bob,Alice,James,John,Peter"
var names = people.split(',')
console.log(names)   // ['Bob', 'Alice', 'James', 'John', 'Peter'] 

Conclusion there are thousand of words in any programming language api, we can’t dig into all of them, but knowing the meaning of this word in a natural english language form, can give you more insight on what that particular keyword does and how to use it in any program. So next time I see a word Thread I check up the natural english meaning before knowing how it works in any programing language