Brevity isn’t the only goal with language; you also want robustness under noise and ease of random access (e.g. if you skim-read a text or if you enter a conver

Brevity isn’t the only goal with language; you also want robustness under noise and ease of random access (e.g. if you skim-read a text or if you enter a conversation a bit late or have to leave early) In an optimally breve language the meaning of a text could completely flip when a single letter/syllable/phoneme is changed. That, in turn, means listeners have to hear every letter/syllable/phoneme perfectly. Interestingly, natural languages already have a bit of both. As an example, if you skim-read a text and restart at “He said she wasn’t there anymore”, there are 3 ‘back references’ in that sentence that require you to look back in the text to find the meaning of. Also, a paragraph’s meaning can change by adding the sentence “Just joking.” Or even a simple “Not.”.