Programmers have never had a wider variety of top-quality languages to choose from. And most of them are free. Consider Squeak . This open-source implementation of Smalltalk was created and maintained by the language's original authors. Your developers may already use Python .
Many implementations are available, most with full source code.
This language has attracted a cultlike following because of its power and flexibility. Watcom consistently beat Microsoft and Borland in performance benchmarks through the 1980s and 1990s. These development systems embody some of computer science's latest thinking, and messing around with them is educational and fun. As a bonus, many have proved to be practical in the field. The language was deliberately built to make programming painful and difficult.