This idea reminds me of an amazing talk by Guy Steele: https://youtu.be/_ahvzDzKdB0 https://youtu.be/_ahvzDzKdB0 He starts the talk by assuming monosyllabic wo

This idea reminds me of an amazing talk by Guy Steele: https://youtu.be/_ahvzDzKdB0 https://youtu.be/_ahvzDzKdB0 He starts the talk by assuming monosyllabic words as his primitives and builds up the words he needs to use to give the talk by providing definitions for them first.