It's a good question. Its worth noting that minimalism is generally considered a good style for writing or speaking natural languages. Think of writers or speak

It's a good question. Its worth noting that minimalism is generally considered a good style for writing or speaking natural languages. Think of writers or speakers known for great style: Hemmingway, Churchhill, Shakespeare[1]. They all used very simple language. As Churchill wrote (or so the internet tells us): >> Short words are best - and old words, when short, are best of all. So using a more concise vocabulary is sometimes considered good. Now it is true that "having a large vocabulary" is widely considered a good thing in a person, i.e. a sign that they're educated/smart etc. But that's just because it's common for ordinary people to be somewhat deficient in vocabulary. Once you have enough, having more isn't necessarily better. I think it would be interesting to compare the vocabulary of different languages with their literary fame. Certainly English and Russian would be near the top of the list (for fame), and they both have far more words than French for example. But it's hard to compare vocabulary sizes between languages because words can change (inflection etc.), become unpopular etc. [1] If you read or listen to one of Churchills speeches, it's hard to imagine how they could be improved. But you won't encounter many (any?) words that aren't very common. You might encounter that with Shakespeare, but that's just because he was writing a long time ago and many words have fallen out of use. His language was considered quite direct at the time and in fact in Hamlet he mocks speeches having an excessively flowery style (which is ironic considering that many people nowadays see him that way).