Computer language - Definition and Overview

A computer language is a language used by, or in association with, computers. Often, the term is used synonymously with programming language, but in general a computer language need not be a programming language. For example, markup languages like HTML are generally not held to be programming languages, but they are computer languages.

In general, as with any other kind of language, a computer language is created wherever there is a need to communicate some information from one entity to another. Programming languages foster the communication of programs among programmers and computers; markup languages communicate the formatting or structure of documents among humans and computers; and so on.

Examples

Computer languages can be classified into several kinds, including but not limited to the following:

• Programming languages
• Specification languages
• Data Manipulation Languages (e.g., SQL)
• Markup languages (typically used for producing documents)
• Transformation languages (e.g., XSLT)
• Communication protocols for networks