It is def not slightly smaller than C#, C# is a cool language, but it is definitely well ahead on a road towards becoming the next C++. C# is probably the second or third most complex/feature-full language I know of (not sure whether the list goes from C++, Swift, C#, or the last two reversed), while Java is quite down the list.

Not sure about any objective metric on the other languages, though. Tried to look at ANTLR grammar files for each, but grammar is only one part -- language semantics are not included. (E.g. Rust's grammar is slightly smaller than Java's, yet I don't think many would argue that it is the easier one). JavaScript, while easy on the surface, can actually be quite complex/has many non-idiomatic concepts, e.g. `this` handling, property flags, etc. Python has similar "rabbit holes".

I don’t know — do you have to know how an engine works to drive a car? While they may not understand at first why they have to write this, I really dislike when people make that 3 words into something impossible to grasp. A good chunk of all programmers have learnt to program by starting with Java. And besides these 3 words, it is a small language (very few keywords), easy, but sufficiently strong type system that will catch most of your problems at compile time, and first and foremost, very well-defined runtime semantics, even when errors happen, all of which help beginners greatly.

Never really thought of that particular keyword soup when I was first learning it. It wasn’t an issue. Grokking Java-style OO was much harder. I probably still don’t grok it.