I`m a native portuguese speaker, for example. In portuguese, we "break" the "to be" verb in two forms: The "ser" verb to denominate an immutable state like "The sun is hot" and a "estar" verb to denominate a transitory state "It is hot today".
My guess is that, if programming languages were made since the beginning with a language like that, the coding world would be a more pleasant place today. Things like differenciate mutable/immutable state would be much more natural.
So, it`s possible even to create a Non-English based programming language IN English. Russian, japanese, etc. languages have their peculiarities, that could shape coding very different than what it is today.
Ruby it`s a nice example of it. Just google about the subject, and found this material (http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2010/12/17/learning-japanese-th...)
Any rubyist-japanese-speaker who would like to give some thoughts on the subject?