Which language should I learn?

Sup /prog/, I want to learn a language. I'm thinking something fairly simple to start off with like PHP but I hear alot of people saying it's shit. I'll be learning on my own from a reference book plus ebooks I can find.

So what would be a good language for a beginner to master before progressing to something more complex.

Thanks!

>>11
C is a very simple language, but a very powerful one.
it's one of those easy to learn, hard to master languages.
it will teach you most of the fundamental concepts that you need for programming