I see it as a language in itself. Once done with the steep learning curve you start to observe repeated patterns and get it more easily. I do agree that the syntax is a huge drawback from now.
Yup, it's definitely its own language! It made me so happy when I saw a Haskell-to-C++-template compiler [1] because of all the similarities in pure-FP style (pattern matching, iteration via recursion, etc).
Haskell and C++ look like the "elite" combo these days, especially when it comes to meta-programming and FP as you said! It's funny how these two different communities are mixing. It feels like JavaScript and Ruby having a child.