When I started programming, I started with Batch scripts Java but I couldn't wrap my head around OOP, so I decided to switch the language. I picked Python. I wish I had known about Ruby and learned it instead, since it's basically a better Python. The Python2-Python3 split still hurts Python even to this day (some tutorials/books are obsolete, for example). The whitespace-based syntax of Python is not sane. The way Python does OOP sucks (just use Ruby). Ruby also has better REPL.
Forth
Forth is too minimal for me.
I would probably use Smalltalk (Pharo/Squeak) or Tcl (someone made a good copypasta: https://paste.textboard.org/d186e4c2).
...or perhaps Perl 5 (it has PCRE, POD, CPAN, PerlMonks, Pledge/Unveil support on OpenBSD. If you are interested, see perldoc perltoc and the perlstyle man-page. I heard some people use the debugger as a "REPL" but there is https://metacpan.org/dist/Devel-REPL)
I guess I might look more into Ocaml and Lua, too (I know very little about the ML-family and Ocaml).
imo a language must have:
* sane syntax
* automatic memory management
* powerful debugging capabilities and a REPL.
* there must also be a FOSS implementation of the language.