Formal and natural languages: examples

What is language? This question can be asked different people and get completely unexpected answers. But hardly anyone will immediately say about languages natural and formal. The definition and examples of such systems rarely come to mind with this question. And yet - what is this classification? And then what is the language?

On the history of languages and their study

The main science involved in the study of communication systems is linguistics. There is also an adjacent specialty that studies signs, semiotics. Both sciences were born several millennia ago, so the history of the origin of languages obviously interested people a long time ago.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that a lot of time has passed since the birth of the first systems, it is now difficult to say how everything happened. There are a lot of hypotheses that speak of the development of a language from more primitive systems of communication, and of its almost accidental occurrence as a unique phenomenon. Of course, the first option has much more adherents and is almost universally accepted.

Approximately the same debate is about why so many languages are available today. Someone thinks that they all originated from one system, and someone insists on the development of several independent centers. But speech in this case is only about natural languages, examples of which are familiar to everyone. They are used for human communication. But there are others, unlike them. And then the question arises: "what is the language?".

Essence

Communicating with each other, not many people think about what language is, what can be attributed to this category, and what not. The point is that there are still sign systems that partially fulfill the same functions, and the differences are very arbitrary. Therefore, the question arises as to what the essence of language is.

There are several concepts on this topic. Some linguists view language as a biological phenomenon, others as a psychic phenomenon. According to another popular opinion, he belongs to the sphere of interests of sociologists. Finally, there are also researchers who perceive it only as a special system of signs. Be that as it may, it is obvious that in this case only natural languages are meant. Examples of concepts that would also include a formal category, yet do not exist, linguistics actually ignores them.

Tasks and functions

Why do we need languages? Linguists distinguish a number of basic functions:

• Nominative, that is, the name. The language is used to name different objects, events, phenomena, etc.
• Communicative, that is, the function of communication. By this is meant the fulfillment of the purpose of information transfer.
• Expressive. That is, the language also serves to express the emotional state of the speaker.

Obviously, in this case, again, both categories are not taken into account: natural and formal languages - it is only the first. However, the second function also preserves the second, only expressive drops out. And this is understandable if you know what a formal language is.

Classification

In general, linguistics distinguishes between two categories: formal and natural languages. Further division occurs according to a number of other features. Sometimes the third category is also singled out - the languages of animals, since by natural are usually understood only the systems by which people communicate. There is further division into smaller groups and subspecies, but it is not necessary to go so deep into linguistics to understand the difference between these two major categories.

So, we need to find out what is the difference between natural and formal languages. The definition and examples can be understood by more detailed consideration.

Natural

Systems that allow people to understand each other when communicating, that is, performing a communicative function, refer specifically to this category. Now it is difficult to imagine how you could manage without them.

All this large category is divided into three major parts:

• Natural languages, examples of which include all adverbs that have arisen and developed in the most usual way (English, German, Russian, Chinese, Urdu, etc.);
• Artificial (Esperanto, Interlingua, Elvish, Klingon, etc.);
• Gestures (language of the deaf).

All of them have their own peculiarities and spheres of application. But there is another large category, for which most people find it difficult to find examples.

Formal

Languages that require clarity in the record and can not be perceived subjectively have also appeared a very long time. They differ impeccable logic and uniqueness. And they, too, are different. But all of them have two basic principles: abstraction and strictness of judgments.

First of all, natural and formal languages differ in their complexity. Most of the systems in the first category are a multicomponent and multilevel complex. Examples of the latter can be either complex or rather simple. Here there is a grammar, punctuation and even word formation. The only difference is that these systems exist, as a rule, only in writing.

What examples can there be? Formal languages include the "queen of sciences" mathematics, followed by chemistry, physics and biology in part. Whatever the nationality of the scientists, they will always understand formulas and recordings of reactions. And for mathematics it does not matter what the number means: the number of apples on a tree or molecules in a gram of matter. Just as in calculating the frictional force, physicists do not take into account the color of the object or any other properties that are not at the moment important. This is how abstraction manifests itself.

With the advent of electronics, the question of communication between a person and a machine, which understands only zeros and ones, became extremely topical. Since the adoption of this system by a person would be too inconvenient and would make the work too complicated, it was decided to create intermediate communication systems. So programming languages appeared. Of course, they also need to be taught, but they greatly facilitated understanding between people and electronics. Unfortunately, many-valued, albeit more familiar natural languages are not at all useful for this function.

Examples

Again, to speak of natural languages simply does not make sense, linguistics has been studying them for a very long time and has advanced in this enough. At the same time, researchers bypass the category of formal. Only recently, when they became very relevant, began to appear the first scientific work on them, theories and understandable examples. Formal languages are created artificially and are usually of an international character. They can be either highly specialized or understandable to everyone, or at least to the majority.

Perhaps the simplest example is a musical notation. There is an alphabet, punctuation rules, etc. This is really a language, although from some points of view the musical notation can be equated only to sign systems.

Of course, this is also the mathematics mentioned, the rules of recording are extremely strict. All the exact sciences can also be conditionally ranked in this category. Finally, these are programming languages. And about them, probably, it is necessary to talk more in detail.

Using

What pushes forward the development and study of formal languages is, of course, technical progress. Computing systems, electronic devices - today almost every thing is a computer in miniature. And if they understand only the binary code, then people usually only perceive natural languages. Examples of various ways and attempts to find some kind of compromise resulted in the idea of creating an intermediate system of communication. Over time, they appeared quite a lot. So today programming is actually the work of an interpreter from computer to human and vice versa.

But people continue to use natural and artificial languages, examples of which make sure that too loose rules of grammar and syntax seriously complicate the interpretation of statements for computers. It is unlikely that linguistic evolution will reach serious tightening. So one of the most promising areas is the natural language understanding system. They will allow machines to process requests that are written without special rules. The first step to this technology is probably the search engines. They are developing now, so maybe the future is already close.