> I too am confused about what both authors think the definition of "ur-" is in both of their contexts.
I'm confused why you're confused. The original author (of "The seven programming ur-languages") stated what they meant by an ur-language:
> I am aware of seven ur-languages in software today. I’ll name them for a type specimen, the way a species in paleontology is named for a particular fossil that defines it and then other fossils are compared to the type specimen to determine their identity. [emphasis in original]
They didn't hide their meaning, they laid it out right before listing the languages and then explaining why they selected them.
I'm confused why you're confused. The original author (of "The seven programming ur-languages") stated what they meant by an ur-language:
> I am aware of seven ur-languages in software today. I’ll name them for a type specimen, the way a species in paleontology is named for a particular fossil that defines it and then other fossils are compared to the type specimen to determine their identity. [emphasis in original]
They didn't hide their meaning, they laid it out right before listing the languages and then explaining why they selected them.