alt Hacker NewsPython has about 40 keywords, I say I would regularly use about 30, and irregularly use about another 5. Hardly seems like a "junkyard".
Further, this lack of first class support for lazy importing has spawned multiple CPython forks that implement their own lazy importing or a modified version of the prior rejected PEP 690. Reducing the real world need for forks seems worth the price of one keyword.
For those curious here are the actual keywords (from https://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html?ut... )
Hard Keywords:
False await else import pass None break except in raise True class finally is return and continue for lambda try as def from nonlocal while assert del global not with async elif if or yield
Soft Keywords:
match case _ type
I think nonlocal/global are the only hard keywords I now barely use, for the soft ones I rarely use pattern matching, so 5 seems like a good estimate