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Kota is a language of the Dravidian family with about 900 native speakers in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu state, India. It is spoken mainly by the tribal Kota people (India). In the late 1800s, the native speaking population was about 1,100. In 1990, the population was only 930, out of an ethnic population of perhaps 1,400, despite the great increase in the population of the area. The language is 'critically endangered' due to the greater social status of neighbouring languages. The Kota language may have originated from Tamil-Kannada and is closely related to Toda language. The Kota population is about 2500. The origin of the name Kota is derived from the Dravidian root word 'Ko' meaning Mountain. Traditionally Kota and Toda are seen as from a single branch Toda-Kota which separated from Tamil-Kota but recently Krishnamurti considers it to have diverged first from Tamil-Kota and later Toda as it doesn't have the centralized vowels characterized for Tamil-Toda.
Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). The Dravidian languages (null ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 53. ISBN978-0-511-06037-3.
Further reading
Emeneau, M.B. 1944. Kota Texts California: University of California Press.
Emeneau, M. B. (April 2000). "Some Origins of Kota -j(-)". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 120 (2): 231–233. doi:10.2307/605026. JSTOR605026.
Emeneau, M. B. (June 1969). "Onomatopoetics in the Indian Linguistic Area". Language. 45 (2): 274–299. doi:10.2307/411660. JSTOR411660.
