I probably should have said "did you really need the syntax and the behavior to be different?" My point is not so much about syntax, it is about unnecessarily

I probably should have said "did you really need the syntax and the behavior to be different?" My point is not so much about syntax, it is about unnecessarily doing things in a conceptually different way. If different behavior at a given point is core to what makes your language special then sure thing, make it behave different, but implementing some different behavior without a significant payoff only makes your new language harder to grasp. Presumably you are making a language because you have some core concepts or beliefs you want to bring to life - all I'm saying is - make that happen, and make the rest as familiar as possible for most programmers.