Well in the end it doesn't matter if your language is looking for popularity or not. What matters is what you can do with it. You think a language with weird symbols all around can't win? Just look at Pearl.

On a related note, if one plans to sell the Language of The Future Of Programming, I swear this thing will know the same fate as Planner, NLS, Sketchpad, Prolog, Smalltalk and whatnot if it cannot help me with the problems I have to solve just tomorrow.

Try J. Or Kona (open source K). All ascii characters.

Haskell has a rule - to avoid popularity at all costs

You should parse it as "avoid (popularity at all costs)" rather than "(avoid popularity) at all costs".

Well of course it does. Popularity is a side effect.