programming language

This term refers to the specialized artificial languages used to communicate instructions to a machine. It is distinct from natural languages like English or Mandarin, as it requires strict adherence to a specific syntax to avoid compilation or execution errors.

In technical discourse, the term is often categorized by level, such as high-level languages (which are more human-readable) or low-level languages (which are closer to machine code). While the term is a compound noun, it is treated as a single semantic unit in software engineering contexts.