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!

Learning C, LISP and assembler will teach one fundamental concepts about coding that will ultimately make one a very good programmer who is able to solve many complex problems and understand the underlying workings of his system.

Learning a high level language like C# or Python might teach one how to do some imperative object-oriented coding which might satify their immediate coding needs, and probably be even enough to make a living, but it won't give them insight about how everything works and how to solve certain complex coding problems.

tl;dr: If you want to be a coding monkey, just learn what you need for the job. If you want to achieve satori, you might want to consider learning the fundamentals and gain a more complete knowledge.