> Secondly the keywords don't really have any strong prior meaning to overload, so in a way they're more "pure" cognitively and easier to grok. The word "for" in everyday English really has nothing to do with "iterative loop with variable definition", the word "use" has nothing to do with symbol imports, but that's all it means to a non-English coder.
I would disagree with this. A lot of programming keywords have enough context to help new people. I.e. "for" or "forEach" maps almost perfectly to English. "For each friend you know, call them and ask what their birthday is and what kind of cake they like".
friends.forEach(friend => { friend.askBirthday(); friend.askFavoriteCake(); })
While loops are the same way. "While there's still boxes on the truck, you need to be moving those boxes".
It requires some slightly awkward contortions, but you can phrase English so that it somewhat resembles code.
"Use" and "import" both also have relatively clear parallels in English. import meaning bringing something from a foreign space into your own, and "use" being equivalent to using a tool.
English is my only real language (other than horribly botched Spanish) and the similarities to English really helped me when learning Python. Both in understanding and just simply remembering the keywords.