I also do not think Scala is “dying”. A language doesn’t have to be in the top 5 to be alive. There is a “winner take all” mentality in a lot of technology people, and the world of software is diverse enough to allow a lot of different solutions to thrive.
However, there is a group of Scala users that are concerned about the future. It would be great if the Play Maintainers could drop in this thread or the one about low github activity and help set expections with the community about how much investment to expect.