What statically typed languages are similar to Python?

Although it is not object-oriented, Haskell offers a significant number of the features that interest you:

• Syntax support for list comprehensions, plus do notation for a wide variety of sequencing/binding constructs. (Syntax support for dictionaries is limited to lists of pairs, e.g,

  dict = ofElements [("Sputnik", 1957), ("Apollo", 1969), ("Challenger", 1988)]
  

• Functions support full closures and multiple return values using tuple types. Keyword arguments are not supported but a powerful feature of "implicit arguments" can sometimes substitute.

• No runtime modification of classes, types or objects.

• Avoidance of specificying classes/types everywhere through type inference.

• Metaprogramming using Template Haskell.

Also, just so you will feel at home, Haskell has significant indentation!

I actually think Haskell has quite a different feel from Python overall, but that is primarily because of the extremely powerful static type system. If you are interested in trying a statically typed language, Haskell is one of the most ambitious ones out there right now.

Cobra is a statically typed language for the CLR (as Boo). From its web page:

Cobra is a general purpose programming language with:

 - a clean, high-level syntax
 - static and dynamic binding
 - first class support for unit tests and contracts
 - compiled performance with scripting conveniences
 - lambdas and closures
 - extensions and mixins
 - ...and more

Sample code:

"""
This is a doc string for the whole module.
"""


class Person
    """
    This is a class declaration.
    """

    var _name as String  # declare an object variable. every instance of Person will have a name
    var _age as int

    cue init(name as String, age as int)
        _name = name
        _age = age

    def sayHello
        # This is a method

        # In strings, anything in brackets ([]) is evaluated as an expression,
        # converted to a string and substituted into the string:
        print 'Hello. My name is [_name] and I am [_age].'

    def add(i as int, j as int) as int
        """ Adds the two arguments and returns their sum. """
        return i + j

Boo is a statically typed language for the Common Language Infrastructure (aka. the Microsoft .NET platform). The syntax is highly inspired by Python, and hashes/lists/array are part of the syntax:

i = 5
if i > 5:
    print "i is greater than 5."
else:
    print "i is less than or equal to 5."

hash = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'monkey': 3, 42: 'the answer'}
print hash['a']
print hash[42]

for item in hash:
    print item.Key, '=>', item.Value

It may not match all your needs, but have a look at Boo - The wristfriendly language for the CLI

If you do, I highly recommend DSLs in Boo: Domain-Specific Languages in .NET which apart from the DSL aspects, covers Boo syntax in a very nice appendix and a lot of meta-programming.

Furthermore the tutorials are a great resource.