What would've been Python if Python didn't exist?
What language do you think would've taken the place of Python as the predominant language for ML and data manipulation if Python was never invented? Would languages that aim to be "Python except better" like Julia still exist? Would the "AI revolution" have even occurred?
Lua, Ruby and Javascript all exist relatively independently of Python and have quite similar features sets.
I wonder if numpy being fairly usable in 2005 is the bigger factor than Python itself.
I'd honestly hope that it would have been something like Common Lisp or Ocaml... now I just hope that Julia replaces Python for ML.
Initially, probably perl.
Ruby probably would've evolved from Perl. PHP probably would've been refined faster.
R - it's already good just not quite as good as Python.