Language question

[Sandy Harris]

Not to start a religious war, but I need advice on which
language to use for an application.

The app is language learning software. It needs to
read text files, do a bit of parsing, present stuff on
the screen, get user input & give feedback. Nothing
very complex, just a general-purpose interactive
program.

There are some complications: The program is
experimental and is likely to be revised a fair bit.
Also, it needs to run on at least Linux (development
& some students) and Windows (many students),
ideally on Mac as well.

My first thought is TCL, which I understand was
designed for this sort of thing. Is that the right
choice? What other possibilities are there?

In case my skills affect the choice, here's a summary:

I'm a moderately proficient C programmer and could
probably manage more-or-less anything short of real
time or kernel in C. However I suspect C is not the
right language here.

I also have enough skill to get things done with the
shell, awk, sed, make, or Scheme, but I am not
deeply conversant with any of those.

The last time I wrote a highly interactive application
was 20-odd years ago in Applesoft BASIC.