I haven't used it much, but I believe the numpy library (I know, not a language) sort of fits the bill of "a language which borrows the good ideas from array la

I haven't used it much, but I believe the numpy library (I know, not a language) sort of fits the bill of "a language which borrows the good ideas from array languages and applies them in a 21st century context". In any case, I know they've taken a lot of the ideas -- not sure how well they've made use of them. As for J, I disagree that it's "not much more than a very powerful calculator" -- it's backed by a deep computational paradigm, and is closer to a work of art than any other language I've seen. The power arising from the small selection of interacting primitives, the harmony of combinators built directly into the syntax, the metaphor with natural language, and much more. It's also somehow more fun and satisfying to solve problems in J than other languages. That said, it is by far the most difficult programming language I've ever learned. I'd say it took a year of part-time tinkering before it started to click, and I'm still not an expert. But the effort was worth it just for the lesson of how different things can be.