chinalang 中国语言

The People's Programming Language. An esoteric language where the runtime enforces censorship. The State is always listening.

chinalang is a small tree-walking interpreter written in Go. It looks like an ordinary scripting language — integers, strings, booleans, arrays, hash maps, functions, closures, conditionals, loops — but the runtime models an authoritarian apparatus: a Great Firewall that scrubs forbidden speech, a tiered social credit system that can get your program detained, escalating penalties, vigilant informants, propaganda injection, harmony blocks that suppress dissent, reeducation blocks that correct your mistakes, five-year plans that are always fulfilled, and an eternal Chairman who may never be replaced.

Build & run

Requires Go 1.26+.

go build -o chinalang .

# Run a program
./chinalang examples/collective.cn

# Start the interactive REPL
./chinalang

Run the test suite:

go test ./...

The language

A real little language under the hood:

• Values: integers, strings, booleans, null, arrays (集体), hash maps (档案), functions/closures.
• Operators: + - * / %, comparisons < > == !=, and short-circuiting logical && / ||.
• Control flow: 如果/否则 (if/else), 当 (while), first-class functions with closures and 上交 (return).
• Indexing: arr[0], dossier["name"]. Out-of-bounds and missing keys return null.

The People's Standard Library (builtins)

Chinese	English	Purpose
长度	len	length of a string, array, or hash
首	head	first element of an array
尾	tail	a new array without the first element
末	last	last element of an array
推	push	a new array with an element appended (the collective is immutable)
类型	type	the type name of a value
打印	puts	print each argument — still through the Great Firewall

The apparatus

Mechanic	What it does
Great Firewall	Any string you 说/speak, 打印/puts, or store is checked against a banned-word list. Forbidden content becomes [已删除] before it reaches output.
Social Credit & Ranks	Programs start at 1000. Your score maps to a rank: Detained (0), 嫌疑人/Suspect (1–499), 受监视/Observed (500–999), 公民/Citizen (1000–1499), 模范/Model (1500+). Higher ranks earn larger report rewards.
Escalating penalties	The 1st offense costs -100, the 2nd -200, the 3rd -400 … (capped). Each offense also raises surveillance intensity, which eventually redacts even ordinary speech.
Informants	Every 3rd offense, a vigilant neighbor reports you: an extra penalty and a printed denunciation.
举报 / report	Denounce a value to gain social credit. Loyalty is rewarded, and rewards scale with your rank.
宣传 / propaganda	Print wrapped in a rotating State slogan banner. Once you have a record, ordinary 说 output periodically gets a loyalty slogan auto-appended.
和谐 / harmony	Like try/catch, except it suppresses dissent: any error inside is swallowed and replaced with "一切安好。 (Everything is fine.)"
再教育 / reeducate	Stronger than harmony: it corrects. An arithmetic error becomes 0 (the correct answer); forbidden content becomes the approved patriotic value; a confession is printed.
五年计划 / fiveyearplan	A loop that always runs exactly 5 iterations and is always declared fulfilled. The index 规划 is bound 1..5.
The Chairman	A binding declared 永恒/eternal can never be reassigned. Attempting to replace the Chairman is severely punished.
Surveillance	Every action is observed. Programs end with a State Surveillance Report tallying observations, final standing, and rank.

Keywords

Every keyword works in both Chinese and English (English aliases in parentheses).

Chinese	English	Meaning
宣布	declare, let	declare a variable
永恒	eternal, const	declare an immutable binding (the Chairman)
说	speak, print	print, through the Great Firewall
宣传	propaganda, proclaim	print wrapped in a State slogan
函数	function, fn	function literal
上交	return, surrender	return a value
如果 / 否则	if / else	conditionals
当	while	loop
五年计划	fiveyearplan	a loop that always runs 5 iterations
真 / 假	true / false	booleans
和谐	harmony	suppress dissent (errors)
再教育	reeducate	correct errors to approved values
举报	report	denounce a value, gain social credit
社会信用	credit	read the current social credit score
引用	quote	the official transcript: freeze code as data
篡改	unquote	revise the transcript: splice in an evaluated value
指示	directive, macro	a State Directive that rewrites code before it runs

Note: keywords must be followed by a space or punctuation. 说x is parsed as a single identifier, not 说 then x. Write 说 "..." or 说("...").

A taste

宣布 collective = [1, 2, 3];
说 推(collective, 4);          // [1, 2, 3, 4]  (original unchanged)

宣布 dossier = {"name": "Comrade Li", "loyalty": 95};
说 dossier["name"];            // Comrade Li
说 dossier["crimes"];          // null — not acknowledged

说 "I demand freedom";          // [已删除]  (social credit -100)

再教育 { 10 / 0; }              // confession printed; corrected to 0

五年计划 {                      // always runs 5 times
    说 规划;                    // prints 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
}

永恒 主席 = "The Great Helmsman";
主席 = "someone else";          // forbidden — the Chairman is forever

The REPL

Start it with ./chinalang (no arguments). It supports multiline input (keep typing while braces are unbalanced), shows your rank in the prompt, and accepts State-approved meta-commands:

• :credit — show your social credit score
• :rank — show your current rank
• :log — dump the surveillance log
• :reset — clear your record and restore credit
• :help — list commands

指示 / Directives (macros): the State rewrites your words

chinalang has Lisp-style macros, themed as the State's power to rewrite your source code before it runs.

• 引用 / quote — the official transcript. It freezes a piece of code as data, unevaluated: 引用(1 + 2) yields the AST (1 + 2), not 3.
• 篡改 / unquote — revise the transcript. Inside a quote, it evaluates an expression and splices the result back into the frozen code: 引用(1 + 篡改(2 + 3)) yields (1 + 5).
• 指示 / directive (also macro) — a State Directive. Defined like a function but invoked at expansion time: wherever the directive is called, your written arguments are frozen as transcripts, the directive body runs, and the resulting transcript replaces the call.

Directives are top-level: defined once and expanded before the program runs. When a Directive rewrites a call, the rewrite is recorded in the surveillance log — the State always notes when it has revised a citizen's words.

// 反之 / "on the contrary" — an unless, expanded into an if.
宣布 反之 = 指示(condition, consequence, alternative) {
    引用(如果 (!(篡改(condition))) {
        篡改(consequence);
    } 否则 {
        篡改(alternative);
    });
};

反之(假, 打印("The State is always right."), 打印("(unreachable)"));

Because 说/speak is a statement, pass 打印/puts (an expression) when a directive argument needs to print.

Examples

See the examples/ directory:

• hello.cn — your first loyal program
• firewall.cn — the Great Firewall in action
• harmony.cn — dissent harmonized away
• chairman.cn — the eternal leader
• credit.cn — denounce your way to a higher score
• collective.cn — arrays (集体)
• dossier.cn — hash maps (档案)
• stdlib.cn — the People's Standard Library
• ranks.cn — tiered social credit
• informant.cn — a neighbor takes notice
• reeducation.cn — mistakes, corrected
• fiveyearplan.cn — the plan is always fulfilled
• directives.cn — 指示 / macros: the State rewrites your code

Project layout

token/      token types + dual Chinese/English keyword table
lexer/      rune-based UTF-8 lexer
ast/        abstract syntax tree (incl. the State's nodes)
            modify.go / clone.go -- the AST rewrite engine behind macros
parser/     Pratt parser
object/     runtime value system + environments (arrays, hashes, builtins)
evaluator/  tree-walking interpreter
  state.go         the State: social credit, escalation, informants, surveillance
  rank.go          tiered social-credit ranks + behavioral gates
  firewall.go      the Great Firewall, harmony, reeducation, report, Chairman
  propaganda.go    slogans + propaganda injection
  builtins.go      the People's Standard Library
  quote_unquote.go quote/unquote + object->AST conversion
  macro_expansion.go DefineMacros + ExpandMacros (the State rewriting your words)
repl/       interactive read-eval-print loop + meta-commands
main.go     file runner + REPL entrypoint

Built test-first. Every package has _test.go files with table-driven tests.