I started reading the book Fundamentals of Database Systems, 3rd Edition by Elmasri and Navathe from the first chapter.
A database is a collection of related data. By data, we mean known facts that can be recorded and that have implicit meaning.
What does "implicit meaning" mean here?
A database can be created and maintained either by a group of application programs written specifically for that task or a database management system.
What are "application programs"?
Mabye they are the queries to retrieve data, update data, etc.
What should I envision when I think of a "DBMS" at its core?
Examples of updates (like "Change the class of Zarah from Freshman to Sophomore") have been given. [...] These informal queries and updates must be specified precisely in the database system language before they can be processed.
What is a "database system language"?
Maybe it is a language like SQL, MySQL, etc.
What does "implicit meaning" mean here
I believe it means that value in a table (say 3395512) doesn't have meaning without knowing what the attribute is, and what relation it is a part of.
I think application programs are the queries you use to, e.g. , retrieve data or update data etc., innit?
Not quite. Applications programs in this context are the applications software developer write to access a database. For example this web site reads and writes to a SQL Server database, or the tools/jobs that that update data.stackexchange.com. Compare this to Sql Server Management Studio (SSMS) which is a tool that isn't written for a specific database.
Can somebody give an example? By example I really mean the simplest example of a DBMS on the planet earth (computerized DBMS, and not the hand-written file system, ofcourse!)
The term DBMS is typically used to describe products like SQL Server, Oracle, MS Access, MySQL, SQL Lite, etc. Some people also apply the term DBMS to the Admin and Developer tools these products come with.
What is DB System Language? Querying Language like SQL, MySQL etc. ?
Typically it's some vendor specific implementation of SQL. However many databases also provide APIs that are able to access the database without SQL, although not nearly as popular.