If you are just starting, I'd say python will be a better choice. It's simpler and there's a ton of existing things for it (libraries, courses, tutorials, etc).
Perl is a good language too and I'd seen people do magic with it. But it's definitely not easy to learn. And, since it allows for pretty crazy things syntax-wise, if the code is poorly written - it can be very hard to read it.
If you are not into forced indenting, I'd recommend looking at javascript/node.js and ES6/babel. It's a bit more complex than python due to some not-so-nice legacy things, but it is a very powerful tool. If you are interested, I can recommend a couple of places to start learning it.
If you are just starting, I'd say python will be a better choice. It's simpler and there's a ton of existing things for it (libraries, courses, tutorials, etc). Perl is a good language too and I'd seen people do magic with it. But it's definitely not easy to learn. And, since it allows for pretty crazy things syntax-wise, if the code is poorly written - it can be very hard to read it.
If you are not into forced indenting, I'd recommend looking at javascript/node.js and ES6/babel. It's a bit more complex than python due to some not-so-nice legacy things, but it is a very powerful tool. If you are interested, I can recommend a couple of places to start learning it.