Pray tell which one of the myriad is the true one?
And do not worry, no one would be rash enough to bring in external dependencies it is just too darn inconvenient.
I should probably drink my coffee before posting, be less grumpy.
Of the languages listed in GP, only Python and JavaScript are scripting languages with REPLs like Bash. Of those two, Python is far more serviceable for what one uses bash for, even in embedded applications (with MicroPython).
Perl, Awk, Ruby, and Lua are also scripting languages one can use in the course of OS scripting. (Your distro probably uses some combination of these, including Python.) Of these, at least Ruby can also be used as a shell.
> Pray tell which one of the myriad is the true one?
You've basically got it, that's just `which python`
I use Python for longer scripts where script maintainability is a priority and external libraries are unnecessary, and as a general shell when I also want my shell to be a calculator, especially when computing on a smartphone (with an appropriate pythonrc).
The key thing is that I already know Python and I find Python's warts more palatable than those on Bash.