In what language did the semicolon first appear as a terminator?
Likewise a similar question about generics . What was its first appearance and how did it spread to C?
edit: corrected question based on Jon Skeet's answer (; is a terminator, not a delimiter)
Definitely ALGOL.
Hmm, someone changed the question. It's not really cricket.
Regarding how it spreads, skeletal points spread well Algol 60 → Simula → C. K + R said that Pascal had no effect on them, IIRC, although some have disputed this claim.
Operator terms (other than newline) are spread from COBOL → Jovial → C. Although each has a different character as a temp.
It's not a delimiter in C - it's a terminator.
However, I believe ALGOL may have been the first to use a semicolon this way.
Pascal had semicolons as terminators before C did; not sure if this was the first language to have them.
ALGOL is also my guess.
What matters is that it freed the user from the fixed, punch-card-style format.
If you need to use Fortran 77, you know what that means.