If you intend to do smart contracts I would suggest languages like Haskell or Ocaml. Avoid C++ because it's really hard to deal with. Rust beats C++ in memory handling and security features.

The language you choose should be based on your familiarity. Dan Larimer is very good with C++ so he works with C++ because it's a high performance high risk language but the key is high performance. If you know how to write code really well and you develop strategies to mitigate the risks then go with C++ but do not go with C++ if you're trying to have secure smart contracts that any developer can write.

Solidity is not any better than straight C++ from what I've seen so far.