I'm gonna pile in with yet another option that isn't a language that compiles to bash...

Consider Ruby for easier shell scripting. With its back tick syntax for executing shell commands, it's quick to use when you want to glue together a series of commands. ...and then you get to use a sane syntax for your script's logic.

Ex:

# Check my history for all usages of the xsv command
# and extract the filename
csv_files = `grep ~/.zsh_history "xsv" | awk '{print $3}'`.
                     split("\n").
                     map(&:chomp)

# list any csv with my phone number
csv_files.select { | filename|
  `grep #{filename} "555-1234"`.chomp != ""
}.each {|filename| puts filename}