Where is the go to place for the language used to program an arduino? I have found some places online but surely there is a central source with projects and classes.
Are you familiar with any programming languages now?
Learning another when you understand one is trivial. You can find resources everywhere!
The Arduino site has a good resource to lookup all the functions and operators that can be used.
Other than that, you pick a project idea and jump in with both feet asking questions and surfing along the way!
Unless you plan to tweak things as you go along... some tutorials will simply give you wire diagrams and code to copy/paste use... This does very poorly in teaching you how it actually works unless you experiment. When you go digging you want example code that is very well commented. You should know or be able to find out what every single word or line is used for!
Of course, you can always give us a shout if you have any questions.