I think there is real convergence. All serious new languages have some form of static typing augmented with some form of type inference. All are lexically scoped. All have first-class functions and map/reduce/filter. None have unchecked manual memory management. None have checked exceptions.

There are still areas of debate, but at the same time I think there is real progress; we have learnt from past mistakes and they won't be repeated.

Some of it is due to theoretical alignment. For example, succinct function expressions come out of the the desire to simplify use of functional programming. Another example is the adoption of ML-style type notation: we want people to use static types, we want it to be easy, and we want types to be expressive -- <var>: <type> allows <type> to contain some spaces and punctuation while still being clear.