View source for Kootayi

{{Infobox language
|image= Settameric_West_Plains.png
|imagesize= 250px
|name= ''Kootayi language''
|nativename=''Iskóótayi''
|pronunciation=/ɪs.ˈkǒː.ta.jɪ/
|-
|creator=[[User:Raistas|Raistas]]
|setting=planet Liifam
|-
|ethnicity=Kóótahin
|familycolor=#AFF2FF
|fam1=Settameric languages
|fam2=Western Plains languages
|ancestor=[[Proto-Settameric]]
|script=none
|-
|notice=IPA
}}
The '''Kootayi''' language (''Iskóótayi'') is a Plains Settameric language spoken by the people, who live in the northwestern plains of the Northern continent. It is the closest relative of [[Kalyahekwe|Kalyah]], another '''West Plains''' language. The name "Kootayi" comes from the Western Kalyah word for "tent", since these people live mostly in dwellings made out of sticks, wood, bark and animal skins, unlike the Kalyaheen, who usually live in wooden houses. Kootayi is believed to have begun as a Plains Settameric dialect spoken between 2,500 and 3,000 years ago in the original homeland, near the '''Kahaaler''' mountains and slowly spread east- and northwards. Among the Plains languages, Kootayi is relatively divergent in phonology and lexicon, yet its grammar is very similar to other neighbouring languages. Unlike Kalyah and its another relative Chiresh, Kootayi has a fairly small phoneme inventory; consisting of 11 basic consonants and three basic vowels that have contrastive length counterparts (border dialects to the east have four vowels and 12 consonants). It is a pitch accent language. 

Like the other Plains languages, Kootayi is considered to be a polysynthetic language due to its large morpheme inventory and word internal complexity. A majority of morphemes have a one to one correspondence between form and meaning, a defining feature of agglutinative languages. However, it also has some fusional characteristics as there are morphemes that can fuse into one. Both noun and verb stems cannot be used bare but must be inflected.