"Go is mostly in the C family (basic syntax), with significant input from the Pascal/Modula/Oberon family (declarations, packages), plus some ideas from languages inspired by Tony Hoare's CSP, such as Newsqueak and Limbo (concurrency). However, it is a new language across the board."
Two of the designers were Rob Pike and Ken Thompson, both instrumental developers of Unix/C and Plan9/Inferno. Thompson created the B programming language that C was based on.
I'm excited to see CSP in Go. I've been advocating its use for concurrency since I learned about Plan 9's channels, but most people paid no attention.
And the goal, as they mention, seems to have the efficiency of a statically-typed compiled language with the ease of programming of a dynamic language but with -
Safety: type-safe and memory-safe.
Good support for concurrency and communication.
Efficient, latency-free garbage collection.
High-speed compilation.
They are aiming at a lightweight type system with no implicit conversions and no more 0x80ULL.
A good starting point is their FAQ page and also the tech talk at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKnDgT73v8s