It's no different to
- Java with Functional Programming concepts in Java 8 - which was already there for FP-oriented languages like Haskell and Scala.
- PHP, with OOP on PHP 5 - which was already there for Java, C++, C#.
I'm not aware of the innovations of other languages, but I'm pretty sure it's not just JavaScript. It's not also about being "late". It's just extending the language to cater more features to a wider developer audience as well as providing a more flexible language.
Just because someone bought a smartphone first doesn't mean I can't own the same exact model or do the same exact thing.