I'm the author, I know all of them. Php, Javascript, and Python the best. Php well enough to have read add patched the source code. If you'd like to explain what you think some fundamental differences are between them I'm all ears.
For any line of python, there's a line or two of PHP to accomplish the same thing (same with javascript).
However you cannot say this for Scala vs Java for example.
1. Join the languages (so PHP would get that syntatic sugar too) [or preferably never have so many in the first place]
2. Be where we are now, where we have redundant libraries, frameworks, languages, package-managers, version idiosyncrasies, and IDEs for mere syntactic sugar.
For any line of python, there's a line or two of PHP to accomplish the same thing (same with javascript).
However you cannot say this for Scala vs Java for example.