Coffeescript has a much better syntax. Actually it has two much better syntaxes, one with a common semantics: a closure that captures the value of self (which is the default one in ruby/smalltak/python/scala, etc).
Alternatively there is also Oliver Steele's functional javascript which is neat: <a href="http://osteele.com/sources/javascript/functional/" rel="nofollow">http://osteele.com/sources/javascript/functional/</a>