Oh, it's easy

> How many people in the world speak English?  How many speak French?  How many speak
Esperanto?

You know, I speak English not because I love it so very much and want to marry it, but just
because I have to, it's better at solving my particular communication problems with the
particular audience than other languages are, no matter how simple or hard it is. If I had to
pick a language from the same group, I'd rather pick German -- I like the way it sounds. But
it's not about choosing a language, it's about choosing an audience which you want to
communicate with.

With the programming languages, the situation is somewhat different -- while the language is
still a way to communicate with other people, they are limited to the people who are involved
in the same project, and as such, the less their number is, the easier it is for you to pick
the language you actually like. If you're going solo, you can use whatever that pleases you.
But if you're joining linux kernel development, you have to do C with the specific coding
styles and practices.

With spoken languages you're like doing one big project in English, one big project in French,
etc. So, yes, it's different. While with spoken languages we aren't really in a position to
choose, with programming languages we still can choose, and have criteria of our own.