I'm one of those guys who started with ALGOL in the 1970's. That was shortly followed by TUTOR (on PLATO), which gave me a deep appreciation for user-interface issues (guess why Macintosh clicked so well with me...). I'll not detail the half-dozen or so languages in which I have done significant work over the years, but skip to C (a bit), SQL (Sybase flavored), and (duh) Perl.

I did have the need to write programs in C to work against a Sybase database. Then I started using Perl and Sybperl. Perl spoiled me big time... The level of abstraction cut out so much niggling bits of code that my productivity want way up, and the frustration went way down. Now I could focus on the "what", not the "how". Tk helped make OO programming more obvious in useful ways.

How does this ramble answer the question? I guess that in the long run it won't matter that much which language you learn first, so long as you get properly exposed to a range of languages. Done right, you should be well equipped to take on a new language as circumstances require. Try not to become a language bigot (no matter how "perfect" the language).

yours,
Michael