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).

The origin of the name Kota is derived from the Dravidian root word 'Ko' meaning Mountain.

[5][6] 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 does not have the centralized vowels characterized for Tamil-Toda.

Kota notably doesn't have central vowels like the other Nilgiri languages, Toda, the closest language also has it.