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Learn Cobol if you want easy money. US gov and banks still use Cobol but nobody learns this language for years. You won't have any competitor, and the salary is really high.

This is a serious and sarcastic answer at the same time.
 
You ask about "languages", plural, which is a good thing, since knowing more than one language is better for multiple reasons. Since this is a forum for Mac, iOS, aTV, watch, etc., I would say a mix of C, Obj C, Swift, and Python would be a good base set (maybe starting in the reverse order). From there you can go on to more exotic specialty languages, such as Metal, MatLab, Mathematica, Rust, Verilog, Fortran, and etc. If you want to teach, maybe add Lisp and Logo, or even Basic.
 
Even though this thread is two years old, the questions you've raised remain relevant for anyone embarking on a software development journey.
 
This thread is still relevant because the landscape for Apple developers has rapidly evolved. Forget any language except Swift. Apple has unofficially deprecated Objective C and interface builder. Try to find some documentation on how to use Interface builder. Increasingly when you read the developer documentation it will be in Swift only. Apple is rolling out new technologies in Swift only - for example Store Kit.
 
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