Guido van Rossum — Dutch Scientist

Guido van Rossum is a Dutch computer programmer who is best known as the author of the Python programming language. In the Python community, Van Rossum is known as a "Benevolent Dictator For Life", meaning that he continues to oversee the Python development process, making decisions where necessary. He was employed by Google from 2005 until 7 December 2012, where he spent half his time developing the Python language. In January 2013, Van Rossum started working for Dropbox... (wikipedia)

Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either.
There was a project at Lawrence Livermore National Labs where many years ago they went down this path for scripting and controlling very large numerical calculations.
I would guess that the decision to create a small special purpose language or use an existing general purpose language is one of the toughest decisions that anyone facing the need for a new language must make.
Mark Hammond is working in this area, with Windows Scripting Host. It is definitely an area where Python fits almost perfectly. That's quite independent from Java, actually.
If you decide to design your own language, there are thousands of sort of amateur language designer pitfalls.