While C++ would be my personal choice out of the options you gave for a from-scratch MUD, C is definitely going to be better for someone who has basically nil coding experience.

*edit*

my reasoning?

The C Programming Language: 272 pages. Thorough tutorial, language definition, and standard library API guide included.

The C++ Programming Language: 911 pages. Same features as above.

As you would guess by looking at the numbers, learning C++ is quite a bit more demanding.

<- coder.

C, while isn't as advanced as C++ it isnt as hard to learn either...and since C++ is based on C your going to learn C anyway. I suggest learning C, and if you arnt satisfied move on to C++

int a,b;
if((a=6) < (b=5)
print "Suxor!\n";
else
print "W00tage\n";

tid bit of C code, easy to read and understand.