Of course not. Especially if the lowest common denominator that was supported across all browsers was something much better thought out than Javascript.
But it could have also meant that you would have a proliferation of several languages supported to various extents in different browsers. In absence of a common denominator it is very unlikely that web-development ecosystem (especially frontend technologies) would have been as rich as it is today.
Having a standardized language that is approachable to new-comers, despite its warts, has played a key role in evolving the frontend ecosystem and propagating the popularity of rich client applications.