Famous language designers listed here.  Few languages are the work of just one person; but for many languages there is one person predominantly responsible for its design.

People who have designed more than one language or have made a career out of inventing languages:

	* NiklausWirth (see WirthLanguages; Pascal, Algol-W, Modula, Oberon, etc)
	* KenIverson (APL, J)
        * GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp, JavaLanguage, etc.)
* WouterVanOortmerssen (must hold the record for number of languages designed)

People who have developed languages, in chronological order of their contributions:

	* JohnBackus (FortranLanguage)
	* JohnMcCarthy (LispLanguage, AlgolLanguage)
	* GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp)
	* DavidMoon (CommonLisp)
	* RichardPGabriel (CommonLisp)
	* GeraldJaySussman (SchemeLanguage)
	* ChuckMoore (ForthLanguage)
	* ChristopherStrachey (CplLanguage)
	* MartinRichards (BcplLanguage)
	* BrianKernighan & DennisRitchie (CeeLanguage)
	* BjarneStroustrup (CeePlusPlus)
	* AlainColmerauer (PrologLanguage)
	* BertrandMeyer (EiffelLanguage)
	* GuidoVanRossum (PythonLanguage)
	* LarryWall (PerlLanguage)
	* GuySteele (SchemeLanguage, CommonLisp, JavaLanguage -- with others in each case)
	* JohnOusterhout (ToolCommandLanguage)
	* AlanKay (SmalltalkLanguage)
	* DavidUngar (SelfLanguage)
	* TomStambaugh, JamesGosling (JavaLanguage--though some feel Gosling's technical contributions to Java are overstated)
** JavaHistory
	* YukihiroMatsumoto aka "Matz" (RubyLanguage)
	* CarlSassenrath (RebolLanguage)

	* PeterLandin (ISWIM)
	* RalphGriswold (SnobolLanguage, IconLanguage)

People who had influence over language design, even if they did not invent a language single-handedly:
	* a committee (CobolLanguage) COBOL was the work of a committee, and should not be credited to GraceHopper as is usually done; see for instance the IEEE article "The Real Creators of Cobol", March/April 2000 (Vol. 17, No. 2)  p30-32, http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/so/2000/02/s2030abs.htm
	* JohnBackus, PeterNaur, H. Rutishauer, et al. (AlgolSixty, FpLanguage).
	* RobertKowalski, his work on automatic theorem proving created the technological underpinnings of PrologLanguage.


some of whom eventually become LanguageLawyer'''s'''...

See also LanguageDesignersOnWiki, InstantLanguageForm