| Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for more limited artificial languages. | | Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for more limited artificial languages. |
− | ==Literature== is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] (from the [[Latin]] ''littera'' meaning "an individual written character ([[letter (alphabet)|letter]])"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of [[writing|text]]s or [[works of art]], which in Western culture are mainly [[prose]], both [[fiction]] and [[non-fiction]], [[drama]] and [[poetry]]. In much of, if not all, the world texts can be [[oral literature|oral]] as well and include such [[genre]]s as [[Epic poetry|epic]], [[legend]], [[Mythology|myth]], [[ballad]], plus other forms of oral poetry, and [[folktale]]. | + | ===An Introduction=== |
− | ===An Introduction===
| + | Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] (from the [[Latin]] ''littera'' meaning "an individual written character ([[letter (alphabet)|letter]])"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of [[writing|text]]s or [[works of art]], which in Western culture are mainly [[prose]], both [[fiction]] and [[non-fiction]], [[drama]] and [[poetry]]. In much of, if not all, the world texts can be [[oral literature|oral]] as well and include such [[genre]]s as [[Epic poetry|epic]], [[legend]], [[Mythology|myth]], [[ballad]], plus other forms of oral poetry, and [[folktale]]. |
| [[Nation]]s can have literatures, as can [[corporation]]s, [[Philosophy|philosophical schools]] or [[Periodization|historical periods]]. Popular belief commonly holds that the literature of a [[nation]], for example, comprises the collection of texts which make it a whole nation. The [[Hebrew Bible]], [[Iran|Persian]] ''[[Shahnama]]'', the [[India]]n ''[[Mahabharata]]'', ''[[Ramayana]]'' and ''[[Thirukural]]'', the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', ''[[Beowulf]]'', and the [[Constitution of the United States]], all fall within this definition of a kind of literature. | | [[Nation]]s can have literatures, as can [[corporation]]s, [[Philosophy|philosophical schools]] or [[Periodization|historical periods]]. Popular belief commonly holds that the literature of a [[nation]], for example, comprises the collection of texts which make it a whole nation. The [[Hebrew Bible]], [[Iran|Persian]] ''[[Shahnama]]'', the [[India]]n ''[[Mahabharata]]'', ''[[Ramayana]]'' and ''[[Thirukural]]'', the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', ''[[Beowulf]]'', and the [[Constitution of the United States]], all fall within this definition of a kind of literature. |