The Cambridge dictionary defines language as follows:

a system of communication consisting of sounds, words, and grammar, or the system of communication used by people in a particular country or type of work: 

She does research into how children acquire language.
Do you speak any foreign languages?"
I'm hopeless at learning languages.
the English language
legal/technical language
the language of business
Java and Perl are both important computer programming languages (= systems of writing instructions for computers).

The last one is important as it only states a system of writing instructions for computers.  So in fact, Speedware 4GL can indeed be considered a language as much as Braille (for the blind) or signing (for the deaf).

The hard part is to define what a 4GL is; I have always considered it the fourth evolution of computer generated code.  The first being 0 and 1 coding, the second being machine code, the third is what we use to call a language (like cobol, basic etc), and the forth being a means to make coding simplier (regardless of what is generated out of it).  I would like to think that the next step (5th GL) is the ability to use brain wave instructions.

And by the way, Speedware does have all what you have asked.  It does have it own vocabulary, grammer, syntax and definitions with plenty of verbs and nouns to make it work as a language.

Langauge is the means to communicate and the ability to be understand.

Some children (especially twins or identical twins) create their own method of communicating that is only understood by the two of them and completely foreign to anyone else.

Olav.



---- Tom Lang <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
> Francois,
> 
> In an earlier post I gave a reference to Fresche Legacy.
> Its age and reconstruction as another company does not make Speedware a language.
> 
> If you consider it to be a language, may I ask you to provide:
> 1) the Grammar
> 2) the Vocabulary
> 3) the Syntax Rules and Semantics.
> 
> Would you also care to provide the architecture of converting the 'language' into a machine-code executable?
> 
> Here's an available version of IBM's COBOL VS II Grammar:
> http://www.cs.vu.nl/grammarware/vs-cobol-ii/
> 
> Kindest Regards,
> Tom.
> 
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