[dspillett]

There is an argument that Awk's language isn't the same category as it is a DSL not intended to be a general purpose language (it is turning-complete, but was not specifically designed as such), and awk itself is considered a complex tool not a language interpreter.

Though having said that, any definition that separates awk from general programming languages like that could probably apply to shell syntax too.

[anthk]

Awk can do more than you think. Read The AWK Progamming Language.

Also:

gopher://hoi.st/1/dl and gopher://hoi.st/0/files/tgl.awk

make up a pretty complete language.

Don't think on AWK as a more powerful grep, you are missing a great mini-language.