The language you need to know is PHP not SQL.. sql is easy, you can figure out basic statements to grab data in no time – especially with some googling.
A note for you.. when you get to creating the connection in PHP, make sure you force mysql_connect to create a new connection (TRUE on the last parameter) and you’ll never have a problem. I had an issue where I was closing my connection before wordpress was finished, and all the wordpress queries after my plugin was called failed.
So store your link resource in a variable and pass it back to your mysql_close – good practice anyway, but essential when you have multiple connections.
Cheers,
whiteatom