A programming language is a formal computer language or constructed language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer.
Over the years computer languages have evolved from machine language to natural languages.

• The only language which is understood by computer hardware is machine language (consisting of binary or hexadecimal instructions).
• Symbolic language uses symbols, or mnemonics, to represent the various machine language instructions.
• A high-level language enables the programmer to write programs that are more or less independent of a particular type of computer and closer to human languages.