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C might not be simple in an absolute sense, but it is still remarkedly simpler than almost everything else in e.g. tiobe top20 (or similar lists).

ANSI C and it's standard library reference can be read in a small book (near 150-200 pages).

Lua has nearly the same length, small reference too.

And then for doing anything useful beyond toy CLI apps, the whole POSIX and some GUI framework has to be dragged into the picture.