The first real programming language I really learned was Perl, back in 
2002.

I was 13 and had already been a Linux user for about a year or two, 
having installed it on a partition of the family PC because I found it 
interesting. I knew how to write small Bash scripts and I had tried some 
C but found it too hard. I have to say that what I really wanted to do 
was write video games.

I had no Internet access at home and I used to buy Linux-related 
magazines that came with CDs. On one of them, I found a copy of Frozen 
Bubble (http://www.frozen-bubble.org). I liked the game and I noticed 
the executable file actually contained all its source code, just like a 
Bash script. The shebang line taught me it was Perl so I decided I had 
to learn Perl.

On a shared PC at school, I looked for a free Perl course and found one 
in French 
(http://www.linux-kheops.com/doc/perl/perl-aubert/html/perl.html) by a 
teacher from an engineering school called ENST Bretagne (now Télécom 
Bretagne). Years later I would study there, and this course probably 
played an important psychological part in my decision. I downloaded that 
course and brought it back home on a floppy disk (using floppy disks at 
school was strictly forbidden but I decided I had no other choice).

Frozen Bubble used SDL so I ended up learning it as well as Perl, by 
studying the Frozen Bubble source code. Then I implemented a few games 
including a platformer and a board game I liked called Ataxx. I outgrew 
the Perl course when I started trying to implement IAs, so I bought a 
copy of the Camel Book (Programming Perl, by Larry Wall) and read it 
all. I fell in love with the Perl philosophy and Larry Wall's style. I 
was 14 and not a native English speaker, so I had to look up several 
words in a dictionary. I sometimes say that I have learned English 
thanks to RPG dialogues, man pages and Larry Wall's Programming Perl :)

Later on I successfully went back to C, discovered Python, Lua and 
several other languages, but it was Perl (and Linux) that really made me 
realize I wanted to be a "hacker".