Formal languages and computation: Models and their applications

Abstract

Formal language theory defines languages mathematically as sets of sequences consisting of symbols. This definition encompasses almost all languages as they are commonly derstood. Indeed, natural languages, such as English, are included in this definition. Of course, all artificial languages introduced by various scientific disciplines can be viewed as formal languages, perhaps most illustratively, every programming language represents a formal language in terms of this definition. It thus comes as no surprise that formal language theory, which represents a mathematically systematized body of knowledge concerning formal languages, is important to all the sientific areas that make use of these languages to a certain extent.