> What's your actual goal here - e.g. are you trying to learn more languages so you can get a better job?
Not as an end by itself, no; I want to learn more languages out of sheer intellectual curiosity, but most of all because I like building things, requirements vary by project, and I believe that it's good to have different tools to tackle them.
I work primarily in JavaScript and Python, but academically I've had rigorous exposure to C, Java and OCaml, and a few other languages to a lesser extent. I appreciate the benefits of dynamic languages but I sometimes miss the confidence and expressiveness of strong types.
My process to learn a language nowadays is to build a project with a large enough scope, solving a real problem (generally, a web app that I or someone very close would use). That way I keep motivation high and get exposed to a non-negligible surface area of the language and tools involved.
That's why I ask for advice on what to learn next - because I make a somewhat sizeable investment and I don't have the time to repeat the process that many times over the course of a year. Over the long run, I may have time to try all the things listed (and more!) but even then the question of sequencing (which one first?) is interesting to me... I'm young and healthy but I may not be alive in six months time.
> If by "growing" you mean you want a language on the left hand side of the hype cycle
Not necessarily growing as in the left side of the hype cycle, but in that it will likely continue having a vibrant ecosystem in 5-10 years time.
> Kotlin will serve you well - it has that Perl-like feel of it does what you want, unless you want consistency. I pity anyone who has to maintain a Kotlin app in 5 years' time, but it sounds like it'll do what you want it to.
Maintanability would be something I would certainly look for in a strongly typed language!
Thanks for your opinion anyway.