He reminds me of the fact that a C programmer can write C in any language.

Yes you can, but you don't want to. Because if you do then you've thrown away the productivity benefits that are to be gained by using a higher level language than C.

I'll give even odds that his "real language" comment is covering fire for the fact that he's programming by imitating poorly understood examples, and doesn't want to admit that he doesn't really understand how to use his current language.

Actually considering what you say his background is, I'd give better than even odds of that...

Cheers,
Ben