C++ is a general-purpose programming language created as an extension of the C programming language. It was designed with a primary focus on providing comprehensive, built-in support for the object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigm. Its core features include classes, objects, inheritance, polymorphism, and encapsulation, which are the fundamental principles of OOP. This extensive support makes it one of the most prominent and widely used object-oriented languages.

A. Markup: Markup is a category of languages (e.g., HTML, XML) used for annotating documents; it is not a programming paradigm like OOP.

B. HTML: HTML is a markup language for structuring web content. It is not a programming language and lacks logic, behavior, and OOP features.

C. C: C is a procedural programming language. It does not have native support for OOP concepts like classes or inheritance.

1. Stroustrup, B. (2013). The C++ Programming Language (4th ed.). Addison-Wesley Professional. In Chapter 2, Section 2.4, Stroustrup introduces C++'s support for object-oriented programming as a primary design goal, focusing on classes for creating user-defined types.

2. ISO/IEC 14882:2020. (2020). Programming languages — C++. International Organization for Standardization. The official standard for C++ defines the language features that support OOP, including classes (Clause 11), derived classes/inheritance (Clause 12), and virtual functions/polymorphism (11.7.3).

3. Pratt, T. W., & Zelkowitz, M. V. (2001). Programming Languages: Design and Implementation (4th ed.). Prentice Hall. Chapter 9 discusses object-oriented programming, highlighting C++ as a key example of a language that extends a procedural base (C) with extensive OOP capabilities.