C++ and,or,not,xor keywords [duplicate]
Solution 1:
They come from C AFAIR from times when it was not known what special symbols are on the keyboard. So to have portable language they were defined so anyone can use C even if they used keyboard with no &, |, or ^ (etc.).
Nowadays when QWERTY is a standard (with AZWERTY & co. as variations) it is no longer an issue.
PS. And of course for obfuscation code competitions ;)