I used to be one to argue against the use of perl as a first language. I have to say I agree with the parent now though. What I like about perl (in a "strict" environment with no/minimal module use) is how it can be a "gateway drug" to other programming/scripting languages. If someone has perl as a first language they can move on easily in the directions of shell scripts, C, and/or C++/Java. There is overhead obviously in all of these directions, but IMHO the overhead comes from learning what makes each language special and not basic syntax.

The university I work at teaches java as an intro language. While I have no beef with java (it puts food on the table for me at the moment) I think some of the students get too caught up in trying to figure out OOP instead of the basics.

If you need a language though that you can either move on from to learn more or learn and hit the ground running with it I would have to recommend perl.