LINQ is innovative because it brings a generic query language as a first-class citizen in the language. I.e. LINQ is more than just a library as they added syntax constructs for it.
Other languages (LISP, APL, in many senses even Python) had this a long time ago.
The fact that they had to add syntax is because C# isn't sufficiently flexible without it. It does not imply any form or manner of innovation.