Chinese BASIC

Well it’s Friday and I’m kind of bored. So here’s some interesting stuff I found on Wikipedia. Apparently there’s a Chinese version of BASIC:) If below, you see squares instead of Chinese characters you may need to install Chinese on your system (if you can be bothered :P)

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_BASIC:

Chinese BASIC commands are printed in blue		Applesoft BASIC
10 卜=0		10 Y=0
20 入 水, 火		20 INPUT E, F
30 從 日 = 水 到 火		30 FOR A = E TO F
40 卜 = 卜+對數(日)		40 Y = Y + LOG (A)
50 下一 日		50 NEXT A
60 印 卜		60 PRINT Y

These characters actually do mean something. Take these 3 lines for example:

20 入 水, 火		20 INPUT E, F
30 從 日 = 水 到 火		30 FOR A = E TO F

…

50 下一 日

50 NEXT A

入 = enter/input

水 = water

火 = fire

從 = from

到 = to/arrive

日 = day/date/sun

下 = next/under (in this context it definately means next)

一 = special grammatic operation (sorry I don't know the linguistic term for it) [ 一 usually means one ]

下一 日 = next day

So in direct translation from Chinese to English these 2 lines would read:
20 Enter water, fire

30 From day = water to fire

…

50 Next day

Interesting huh? The variables in the above example are natural elements 😛 Well, if Chinese BASIC doesn’t interest you, not to worry! There are plenty other languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_English_based_programming_languages