Obviously what the programmers knew to start with is of importance. But that's no property of the language (well, sure, being easy to pick up increases the risk

Obviously what the programmers knew to start with is of importance. But that's no property of the language (well, sure, being easy to pick up increases the risk). But no, ignoring that it is not a big assumption really. The benefits of static typing comes pretty quickly, especially if there are more than one programmer.