PHP is the English of programming languages

It's also easy to learn and ready-to-go on just about every shared hosting package on offer.

I see how you could draw that conclusion, but it's definitely far from the default

https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2024/1

Number 7 by github project stats

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#most-popular-technologies

12 by stack overflow's survey

It's not the default, C is.

There hasn't been a reason to use PHP for over a decade.

its only inconsistant and makes little sense if you stopped paying attention to it at before php 8

I think you mean it’s the US English.