Indeed. The original plan envisioned Perl being a slang in the Raku Programming Language. That plan failed because Perl is largely dependent on C-code plugins that are used whenever Perl is considered to be too slow (which is often). So being able to support Perl syntax in Raku, would only allow use of Perl-only modules from CPAN (of which there are way too few).
To counter that, Inline::Perl5 (https://raku.land/cpan:NINE/Inline::Perl5) was developed. It gives you access to 99.9% of Perl's functionality transparently, such as being able to subclass Perl classes in Raku, and vice-versa.
Ok, multi-lang virtual machines wanted to replace Perl5 binary.
But: :)
- multi-lang vm's are proof that v5 syntax wasn't mean to be eradicate at all cost
- there was no plan or push to instantly obsolote, uninstall and deny of Perl 5 usage
- I'm sure there was a conviction that some Perl 5 installations will stay for long time period into the future. Or as long as possible ~~ forever.
So it wasn't like Python 2.7 replacement. And plans even assumed continuation. And some from the start wanted to have both langs :)