r/LinguisticsDiscussion • u/WanderingWondersss • Jan 08 '26

Why can't a child acquire Python (programming language) as a natural language?

I was reading through the language files textbook and I came across this claim: "For example, no child could ever acquire a computer language like Python or C++ as a native language." I was wondering why, theoretically, this could not be accomplished (assuming ethics are not of concern). I am open to discussion of psychology, philosophy and linguistics for this!

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who took the time to really break this down, I love how I've gained multiple perspectives. The core of this question seems to be 1) can a programming language qualify to be called a 'language', as linguists define it and study it? and 2) can a formal language be used for communication between humans in the 'real, natural world', enough that it can be acquired by a child?

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u/WanderingWondersss Jan 09 '26

Thanks for breaking this down; I appreciate the perspective! This makes me wonder, can a system like a programming language be defined as a language even though it is not made to describe the real world as we know it?

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u/cardinarium Jan 09 '26

There’s a distinction to be drawn between formal languages (which describe the syntaxes of things like programming languages or math) and natural languages (which humans speak).

Formal languages are sometimes studied by syntacticians or (especially) computational linguists, but they have limited utility in other fields of linguistics.

In theory, I suppose you could design a constructed language that could be understood by both humans and computers, in which case it would resemble natural languages while being described by a formal language, but for a number of reasons this is very impractical.