Motto

The essence of any programming language is its "parse tree".

Natural languages can be conceptualized and described as forests of cognitive structures.

L & C :: Genealogy of Programming languages

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genealogical_tree_of_programming_languages.svg

Linguistic Stammbaum

more on languages, evolution, etc. in my Prolegomena Paedagogica wizzion.com/PP.pdf

(discussion of Schleicher's (1873) Stammbaum on p. 36)

L&C :: Invitation to Sanskrit

https://sanskrit.inria.fr/

(c.f. also Prolegomena Paedagogica, p. 114-115)

L&C :: Formal grammars

In formal language theory, a grammar (when the context is not given, often called a formal grammar for clarity) describes how to form strings from a language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax. A grammar does not describe the meaning of the strings or what can be done with them in whatever context—only their form. A formal grammar is defined as a set of production rules for strings in a formal language.

A formal grammar is a set of rules for rewriting strings, along with a "start symbol" from which rewriting starts. Therefore, a grammar is usually thought of as a language generator. However, it can also sometimes be used as the basis for a "recognizer"...

L&C :: Formal languages as trees

Gramatiken

L&C :: Parse trees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree

while b ≠ 0
  if a > b
    a := a − b
  else
    b := b − a
return a

Note of warning

"Strictly formalist, transformationalist approach had failed to furnish a complete, consistent elegant framework for the study of natural languages but

significantly facilitated construction and further development of artificial and programming languages."

(Prolegomena, p. 120)

Simply stated: formal languages are about games with symbols but not about communication or exchange