It is always interesting to look at beginnings and early signs of notions - concepts - that we use in our everyday lives. The particular phrasing, I don't know if that should matter so much.
Chomsky's work on formal languages falls roughly in that epoch of 50s, ALGOL and COBOL, too.
"Computing" wasn't what it is today, I think mathematical and electrical engineering background of the computing experts would affect what language (pun intended) they used. The idea (and term) of "languages" stayed but what makes a term popular is hard to settle.
I think in terms of concept, formal (mathematical) logic predates all this by a few decades. The subtitle of Frege's 1879 "Begriffsschrift" was "Eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens" which I would render as "A formula language of pure thought, modeled after the arithmetical one". I think the roots are rather there...