I like R because most everything is vectorized out of the box, and you can subset multiple ways. You can do stuff like

a = c(1,2,3,4)
a - 1 # 0,1,2,3
a < 3 # T,T,F,F
a + a # 2,4,6,8
a[a < 3] # 1,2

Also map (“apply” functions in R) is implemented very intuitively, and R discourages you from doing anything object oriented.