What are the differences between a systems programming language and Application programming language?
i don't think there is a final answer here anymore.
perl and python come by default with almost every linux distro...both can inline C...both can do job control and other "low level" tasks...threading etc. 
any language with a good set of system call bindings and/or FFI should be as fundamentally system-aware as C or C++. 
the only languages i would discount as being systems languages are those that specifically address another platform (jvm, clr) and actively seek to prevent native interaction
Difference between Systems programming language and Application programming languages