Programming Language Design as Art

Corbett, in making Cree#, wanted to go beyond replacing English keywords (commands like "let" and "print") with Cree keywords in a static list. For one thing, Cree is a morphemic language and he wanted Cree#'s signifiers to hold programmatic meaning at the syllabic level, which is highly unusual in programming languages. To program in Cree#, we need to understand not only Cree linguistics but also its cultural logic. To declare a variable (which can be thought of as a storage location for data), one must put it in either a mînisiwat, a berry bag, or maskihkîwiwat, a medicine bag. If the variable is everyday or transient, it would go in the berry bag.