In the current context of contemporary languages I would consider system languages, having GC definitely defines one as abnormal, and Go is abnormal for a systems language. It was apparently much less uncommon to have GC system languages in the past (but I suspect those languages were well adapted to having fine grain memory control coupled with GC). Go is an interesting mix of low-level and close-to-the-metal with a few aspects which are not low-level (channels and GC).