Small embeddable scripting language ?

[Biswapesh Chattopadhyay <biswapesh_chatterjee tcscal co in>]

Hi

I'm looking for a scripting engine for Anjuta. It would be used for
extending functionality through user-defined tools as well as a
templating language for wizards. The requirements are:

1) Small (since we'll probably have to distribute it with Anjuta)
2) Reasonably fast
3) Embeddable from C programs
4) Ability to register/call C functions
5) Free

My guess is that we are not the first project looking for this since it
seems to be a pretty obvious thing to do once things get bigger than a
certain size. So far, I like Lua (http://www.lua.org/) - however, the
syntax seems a bit weird - I'd prefer a minimal learning curve for
people (including me).

So, my question is: is there any 'official' GNOME policy for this ? If
not, what do you suggest ? What did porojects facing a similar situation
choose ? Can someone point me to a reasonably simple implementation ?

Thanks in advance.

Rgds,
Biswa.