Did you read my reply? To quote: "easy linking to C libraries, and builds a native binary with no extra dependencies, speed ... safety, robustness, compact source code size" There are certainly many more popular languages, but few with that combination of advantages. The project started in 2009, so you should discount any languages which were not mature before that date.

There are a few people at Red Hat and outside who contribute. To my knowledge none had prior experience with OCaml, but it's pretty easy to pick up.