Andrew Paxson:

WHAT LANGUAGE SHOULD I LEARN FIRST?

Python. Houdini, Maya, Nuke, Modo, and Blender all implement python and allow you to do some amazing things! Python is super easy to use and the support online and in studios is very vast! Later I recommend, if you are an Houdini Artist, C++ and VEX. For Maya artists, MEL and C++.

I agree with all of this. I sometimes wonder why Python isn't a requirment for jobs that have to do with any of the above software. I know many senior artists that have no coding skills at all. That doesn't make them bad artists it just means at some point they will run out of options for problem solving.