Kotlin is a programming language that is expressive, concise, and portable. It runs on the Java Virtual Machine and is fully interoperable with Java. Kotlin focuses on safety, interoperability, and tooling support. The basics of Kotlin include top-level functions, variables, if/when expressions, loops, ranges, null safety features, and string templates. Kotlin avoids null pointer exceptions through language features like the Elvis operator, safe calls, and non-null types.