Not really a fair comparison. From 1972 until 2000, C was the most performance/expression balance that industry could bear. Lisp sacrificed raw computational performance for increased readability and writability, but that's a tradeoff that was unpopular in industry. Hence, it was never a viable competitor. (I like it, but I am not industry.)
A fair comparison is C to C++ or Java to C#. C has been around longer than C++, and there are more C apps than C++ apps on UNIX. (Windows is another story; MS pushed C++ pretty hard back in the day. Same for Obj-C on Mac.)
Java has been around longer than C#, and there is more stuff written in it, even though it is technically inferior. Time always beats language features.
If you want an accurate measurement, start a totally new project today that depends on nothing. Clone yourself. Then start writing it in C, and in $some_other_language. Then see which one meets your expectations soonest. It will probably be $some_other_language. But add in some dependencies on historical code, and C becomes competitive again.
Standing on the shoulders of a giant is faster, in the short term, than becoming a taller giant.
A fair comparison is C to C++ or Java to C#. C has been around longer than C++, and there are more C apps than C++ apps on UNIX. (Windows is another story; MS pushed C++ pretty hard back in the day. Same for Obj-C on Mac.)
Java has been around longer than C#, and there is more stuff written in it, even though it is technically inferior. Time always beats language features.
If you want an accurate measurement, start a totally new project today that depends on nothing. Clone yourself. Then start writing it in C, and in $some_other_language. Then see which one meets your expectations soonest. It will probably be $some_other_language. But add in some dependencies on historical code, and C becomes competitive again.
Standing on the shoulders of a giant is faster, in the short term, than becoming a taller giant.