What is generally seen as the n00b language for the arduino?
The arduino environment supports programming the Atmega CPU in C or C++, with "n00bs" strongly encouraged to stick to the subset of mostly C documented on the Reference Page. (Incidentally, this subset of C looks a lot like the subset of Java used in the "Processing" environment, which is ... interesting.)
As you gain experience, you can use more advanced C/C++ features (though you'll still be somewhat restricted to what makes sense on a small microcontroller), and access additional AVR microcontroller resources in less abstracted ways, if you want...