Fenix is a step in the right direction. My first programming language was C based. It was utter hell working with that POS language. The programmers of the parser suck. Now that i've explained that, I will get to the main point. If you start on a simple language, make sure it doesn't suck. Python, Perl and Fenix use time-tested technology and i doubt that you'll look back at it as a pile of junk. Hell, Python and Perl are time tested as it is. Many people will prefer python, I now program in C, but I'll admit using python to ease some tasks. As for Perl... Has it even been ported? Of course, theres always Java, but i look at most of it as bloatware. Its just too damn high level and memory consuming. Java doesn't have a huge overhead, though, its only slow on some occasions(File reads and parsing can end up being very painful.). Just imagine virtualization. I myself prefer python because i can work with extremely complex programs with very very little overhead. Programs written in python gtk are only so much slower than those written in C. Even ones using complex features.
If you seriously want to go simple, then that will work, most people do it that way. It often makes a better... or at least A programmer. The thing about C is that it you must manage the memory. You have to understand how memory is stored. You have to understand this, and in depth. Most people are scared off by things like unsigned vars, malloc, new, struct, the pointers (*), and so on, but the truth is, It will make complete sense and you will use it to your advantage and just plainly use it every line of code. In fact, you'll get use to having errors related to them and totally understand them better (though at first you'll be like "OMG WTF!! WHAT THE !@#$ IS WRONG NOW!!!") but when looking at interpreted language it handles everything and does it with a lot of logic you don't need.
As for basic, maybe you can get a basic like dark basic where everything's linked together, SDL, Sound, etc. but i doubt it.
