C is typical for small microcontrollers like the PIC and even the ARM.
Having said that most "good" c compiler vendors will provide libraries to perform functions that would otherwise require a lot of coding - i.e. fractional mathematics and a bunch of other stuff that the microcrontroller does not natively support. They provide libraries to bit bang pins, software rs232, lcd code ... the list goes on and on.
So even if you do buy a C compiler its not a complete pain in the ass like it was in the old days (I personally used to hate the language), but with the libraries I am satisfied enough. I am still pissed that the pricks who wrote if thought it was a good idea to put a ; a the end of every line. The syntax sucks ass and is unnecessary. Even pascal had better syntax but the purists would never accept that. Delpi though has gone open source - it still has a following. There is a guy in Adelaide with an Oberon based compiler and mikroelectronica sell their compilers in C, Basic and Pascal so the environement and choice is still rich. Pascal is still alive and kicking from several sources.
On the other hand if you program using Visual Studio on the PC desktop, you have the choice of C# and VB. Now I have used both and was once also a Quickbasic programmer. Quickbasic was structured basic. VB.net is only notionally related to basic. Sure some of the syntax is there but Visual Studio forces you to write code in an object orientated way so if you were transported from 1985 using the dos basic compiler to todays vb.net you would be completely lost and it would only be vaguely related to basic.
On the other hand it is relatively simple to convert C#.net to VB.net and back again. The syntax is slightly different but Visual Studio forces the same code structure so I have done that many times - either one is usable and I don't consider them to be much different. VB.net used to be the most widely used desktop language in the world but Microsoft stopped publishing the download numbers (probably when they integrated them all together - you can mix vb.net and c# code blocks in a single project) - besides it was probably embarrassing - I mean look what happened to J# .. they had to kill it off. C++ proper is in Visual studio but I would say it is no where near as popular as the other two as it was developed earlier and lacks the same code structure as the .net languages. Of course if you are on linux or the desktop you can use c++ in VS or g++ as a front end to gcc. Basically if you have a favourite language for a chip there is probably a compiler for it.
Ironically for the first time in 20 odd years I have had to recently write code for the PIC using assember for speed.