https://elangocheran.com/2014/10/30/exploring-programming-in...
Although I started the above project around the same time as Ramsey started his project in the original link (CLisp in Arabic), they were two entirely independent things. Ramsey's project is a 100% translation, whereas my project scales to other natural languages but is not a 100% translation.
Tim and I worked on trying to make programming in other languages easier as a means to help more kids learn programming, and learn FP the Lisp way, which we explain as more natural.
So, if you want to translate a lisp into another language you have to resort to macros.
* (symbol-function 'if)
#<CLOSURE (:SPECIAL IF) {1000C5084B}>
* (setf (symbol-function 'foo) (symbol-function 'if))
#<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {10005205B3}>:
#<CLOSURE (:SPECIAL IF) {1000C5084B}> is not acceptable to (SETF SYMBOL-FUNCTION)
* (setf (symbol-function 'bar) (symbol-function 'mapcar))
#<FUNCTION MAPCAR>
* (bar #'1+ '(1 2 3))
(2 3 4)
I expected specials to work in this case, but apparently not.
Variables may also have to be done with macros, because you want an assignment to a translated variable name to appear in the original variable. Some Lisp dialects perhaps allow a variable cell to have a binding to two or more symbols which could do the same thing.