I'm not sure how Python can be described as "saved" by numpy et al., when the numerical Python ecosystem was there near the beginning, and the language and ecos

I'm not sure how Python can be described as "saved" by numpy et al., when the numerical Python ecosystem was there near the beginning, and the language and ecosystem have co-evolved? Why didn't Perl (with PDL), R or Ruby (or even php) succeed in the same way?