This seems really advanced and it seems that is not a language on its own but a mixture and they are called 'Directives'.

 

Are there any online live tutorials out there that teach online like codeacademy where you can pick it up as you go?

 

It looks like Japaneese to me . There is a lot of information out there on http requests, but I would like to learn the absolute basics; e.g.

 

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*\/index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]

What the '^' does, and the '(.*)' etc.

I found htacces hard to work with at the start then read a few tutorials about them.

Google Ultimate Guide to htaccess should really help with your quest of knowing more!

htaccess is gibberish to me, but i think it might be worth looking into..

If seeing as web development and seo point of view then htaccess redirect is very useful to especially for url rewriting. It will help to make seo friendly urls for the site.

yeah .htaccess is really helpful for SEO. Especially, when one domain has filter or ban and want to redirect it to another domain.