cobol, fortran and the likes are thrid generatin languages, based on line commands.
Fortrans means Formula-translation, and cobol means Common Business Orientated Languge
Pascal was another language which was similar to C , but it shared a lot of similarity to Cobol in terms of their emphasis on structure and syntax.
They shared the construction of codes consisting of single entry and single exits which is shaped with the use of; if, while, for, case, and so on. In the hey day of microcomputers, these third generation codes was the most common form of user-end instruction-manipulation on these computers. C and Pascal were the precursors to Object Pascal > C++ which is now common place in the fourth generation languages which emphasie object orentation. Visual basic is probably the most well know example of this but perhaps C++ has more popularity in the commerical scene of developing PC computers-based softwares.
just my 2 cents, have a nice day 
btw my fav 3rd gen lingo was Atari BASIC and I like dabbling with Z80 assembly hell i forgotten all th codes now, it was all in Hex!!
cheers
