Is Haskell suitable as a first language?

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I have had previous exposure to imperative languages (C, some Java) however I would say I had no experience in programming. Therefore: treating me as a non-programmer, would Haskell be suitable as a first language?

My interests in Pure Mathematics and CS seem to align to the intention of most Haskell tutorials, and although i can inherently recognise the current and future industry value of imperative programming, I find the potential of functional programming (in as much as it seems such a paradigm shift) fascinating.

I guess my question can be distilled as follows - would a non-programmer have to understand imperative programming to appreciate and fully utilise functional programming?

Some references:

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