It can. But when it does, it stops getting called a language, and starts getting called an OS that only supports one language.
You're either not familiar with some of the technologies I'm discussing, or you're not getting the point I'm trying to make.
Smalltalk started out as an OS, and even back then, it was fully capable of supporting any number of languages running on top of it.
Or it gets called programming the bare metal.
My point is that this is just a fixed idea without a fundamental basis. That's just how it has been as opposed to how it has to be. Basically, it's that way because the field settled in on a particular way of doing things that fit the limited hardware of the time.
Also, there's no reason why a VM, JIT or otherwise even has to be involved. Haiku/BeOS is another such creature. It's highly responsive, even on ancient hardware, and it's highly compact. (Entire OS + apps in well under 200M.)
The OS is a set of abstractions. A High Level Language is another. There's no universal reason why the latter can't subsume the former.
It can. But when it does, it stops getting called a language, and starts getting called an OS that only supports one language.
Or it gets called programming the bare metal.