> Maybe so, but it's not like there are a lot of languages around that are as expressive, flexible and easy to learn as python, but as fast as C.

There are several languages on the JVM which are that or better. As fast as C, no, but JVM is considered fast enough for a lot of applications where performance matters.

> JS is probably the closest, but not because of superior language design

There's this myth that Python as a language is superior to JS. In reality both have their long history and warts. JS/V8 is just much faster.

For me personally, JS is a much more ergonomic language than Python.