So too is Fortran. C# and Java are almost always going to be compiled to bytecode and then JIT compiled at runtime. Python and Ruby are almost always going to be interpreted.

You can use Nuitka to compile Python programs to standalone executables, then redistribute them without the Python runtime.

Can a high-level language like Python be compiled thereby making it as fast as C? This question was originally answered on Quora by Tekhon Jelvis.