Scheme is awesome as long as you are mathematically fearless enough to learn from square one using books like How to Design Programs and The Structure and Inter

Scheme is awesome as long as you are mathematically fearless enough to learn from square one using books like How to Design Programs and The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. They provide a great foundation if you feel right at home in math, and you're not too concerned with building something practical for your first project. For people who aren't as confident in their math, I would recommend Python, as other have mentioned. It's thoroughly friendly to newcomers, there's tons of good documentation (the free tutorial written by Guido is incredible), the libraries are among the best available, and, like Scheme, it's easy to start by biting off a manageable chunk and then gradually learning more details as you go.