The Alpha language was the original database language proposed by

Edgar F. Codd Edgar Frank "Ted" Codd (19 August 1923 – 18 April 2003) was an English computer scientist who, while working for IBM, invented the relational model for database management, the theoretical basis for relational databases and relational databa ...

, the inventor of the relational database approach. It was defined in Codd's 1971 paper "A Data Base Sublanguage Founded on the Relational Calculus". Alpha influenced the design of QUEL. It was eventually supplanted by SQL (which is however based on the

relational algebra In database theory, relational algebra is a theory that uses algebraic structures with a well-founded semantics for modeling data, and defining queries on it. The theory was introduced by Edgar F. Codd. The main application of relational algebr ...

defined by Codd in "Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages"Codd, E.F., "Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages", IBM Research Laboratory, RJ987, 1972.), which IBM developed for its first commercial relational database product.

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