Peace, a machine language is the direct, machine-specific set of available instructions, properly represented in binary or hexadecimal code. It's sometimes confused with "assembler", or 1st generation programming language (though this term was coined later, and has rarely been used), which is one step further removed from the machine, in that it is represented by acronyms or short letter-based words (MOV for "move", for example), yet it has a near-one-to-one relationship with the machine code it represents; and thus it is also machine-specific.

Fortran belongs to the 2nd generation programming languages (in fact the first languages to be called that), which are even further removed from the machines; for a start, they are machine-code-independent, though not machine architecture-independent (i.e. you needed to know the available hardware components of the computer, how many disks or tape drives and of what capacity, what type of printer etc).

3rd generation languages were also machine architecture-independent, while 4th gen languages were also data architecture independent; and thus we come to object-oriented programming and today's programming tools.

Fortran (II) was the first computer language I learned, in 1971, before I went to uni, and I enjoyed using it so much that it was instrumental in my decision 2 years later to abandon Chemical Engineering for Computer Science (as it was then called). I used it for a number of years; I did one of my two degree projects in it. Even more important, I used Backus-Naur Form for my Masters thesis, designing a compiler (a translator of programming languages into machine code).

With 34 years in IT (studying and working), and a good career in the profession, I have much to be grateful to John Backus for. God rest his soul.