> I wanted to avoid teaching syntax. While Python makes sense as pseudocode [...] it is still nearly incomprehensible to new learners [...] I decided I wanted to either teach Forth or Haskell.

Sorry but this reads like a joke. If you find python incomprehensible, Forth and Haskell won't even register as languages.

I think that's because Haskell doesn't need to be understood as a language beyond the fact that it works like maths functions.

Procedures are a lot harder to explain the first time to people who work with maths functions, especially if you call procedures functions.