While statistical analysis always has its flaws, the trends are pretty clear. Java, C#, even PHP are losing popularity, Python, Ruby, Haskell, Ada are gaining popularity, and even Google Trends seems to agree.
Python is an interpreted language, like PHP, Ruby, and Perl. While PHP was very popular throughout the 2000s. Recently PHP and Python have become equally as popular. Now they are neck in neck. Both of them have enough features to be capable of anything. Some subtle differences however, make Python more amazing than PHP.