I would argue that rust is both simpler and more consistent than either C or C++. No preprocessor, no pre/post increment, a real type system (instead of templates)—there's just not the mountain of undefined parts of the language that tends to be a large problem. Scala, in spite of being on a VM, is far closer to C++ IMHO in terms of attitude.

I actually find golang harder to read without parametric types (sans built-in slices and maps).