> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.inworld.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Language Support

> Realtime TTS built for multilingual applications.

Bring your product to a global audience: synthesize speech with the same voice across a wide range of languages.

Realtime TTS-2 (`inworld-tts-2`) is our most capable model and the recommended choice here, with more accurate pronunciation and intonation and more natural-sounding speech.

## Supported languages

Realtime TTS-2 (`inworld-tts-2`) supports **200+ unique languages and locales** (BCP-47 codes) — from broad languages like `es` (Spanish) to regional locales like `es-MX` (Mexican Spanish). The languages we actively support and test are listed below.

### Generally available languages

These languages are **generally available (GA)**, offering the highest quality and the most natural pronunciation:

| Language   | Code | [Timestamps](/tts/capabilities/timestamps) | [Normalization](/tts/best-practices/prompting-for-tts#notes-on-normalization) |
| ---------- | ---- | ------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Arabic     | `ar` | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
| Chinese    | `zh` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Dutch      | `nl` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| English    | `en` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| French     | `fr` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| German     | `de` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Hebrew     | `he` | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
| Hindi      | `hi` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Italian    | `it` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Japanese   | `ja` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Korean     | `ko` | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
| Polish     | `pl` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Portuguese | `pt` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
| Russian    | `ru` | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
| Spanish    | `es` | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |

### Experimental languages

These languages are supported by `inworld-tts-2` only. To try one, [design](/tts/voice-design) or [clone a voice](/tts/voice-cloning) in that language.

<Accordion title="Show all experimental languages (alphabetical)">
  | Language          | Code <sup>\*</sup> | [Timestamps](/tts/capabilities/timestamps) | [Normalization](/tts/best-practices/prompting-for-tts#notes-on-normalization) |
  | ----------------- | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
  | Afrikaans         | `af`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Albanian          | `sq`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Amharic           | `am`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Armenian          | `hy`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Assamese          | `as`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Azerbaijani       | `az`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Basque            | `eu`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Belarusian        | `be`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Bengali           | `bn`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Bulgarian         | `bg`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Burmese           | `my`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Cantonese         | `yue`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Catalan           | `ca`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Cebuano           | `ceb`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Croatian          | `hr`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Czech             | `cs`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Danish            | `da`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Eastern Yiddish   | `yih`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Egyptian Arabic   | `arz`              | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Estonian          | `et`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Filipino          | `fil`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Finnish           | `fi`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Galician          | `gl`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Garhwali          | `gbm`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Georgian          | `ka`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Greek             | `el`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Gujarati          | `gu`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Gulf Arabic       | `afb`              | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Haitian Creole    | `ht`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Hijazi Arabic     | `acw`              | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Hungarian         | `hu`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Icelandic         | `is`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Indonesian        | `id`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Javanese          | `jv`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Kannada           | `kn`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Kazakh            | `kk`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Konkani           | `kok`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Lao               | `lo`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Latvian           | `lv`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Libyan Arabic     | `ayl`              | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Lithuanian        | `lt`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Luxembourgish     | `lb`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Macedonian        | `mk`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Maithili          | `mai`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Malagasy          | `mg`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Malay             | `ms`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Malayalam         | `ml`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Marathi           | `mr`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Mongolian         | `mn`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Najdi Arabic      | `ars`              | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Nepali            | `ne`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Northern Uzbek    | `uzn`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Norwegian Bokmål  | `nb`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Norwegian Nynorsk | `nn`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Odia              | `or`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Omani Arabic      | `acx`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Pashto            | `ps`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Persian           | `fa`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Piedmontese       | `pms`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Punjabi           | `pa`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Romanian          | `ro`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Serbian           | `sr`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Sindhi            | `sd`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Sinhala           | `si`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Slovak            | `sk`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Slovenian         | `sl`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Swahili           | `sw`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Swedish           | `sv`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Tamil             | `ta`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Telugu            | `te`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Thai              | `th`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Tunisian Arabic   | `aeb`              | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Turkish           | `tr`               | Yes                                        | Yes                                                                           |
  | Ukrainian         | `uk`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Urdu              | `ur`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Uzbek             | `uz`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Vietnamese        | `vi`               | Yes                                        | No                                                                            |
  | Võro              | `vro`              | No                                         | No                                                                            |
  | Welsh             | `cy`               | No                                         | No                                                                            |

  <sup>\*</sup> These are base language subtags (ISO 639-1, or ISO 639-3 for less common languages).
</Accordion>

<Note>
  **Accents and regional variants:** A voice reproduces the specific accent it was [cloned](/tts/voice-cloning) in (e.g., a voice cloned in British English speaks `en-GB` natively). If your voice wasn't cloned in the accent you need, pass the matching [BCP-47](https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp47) regional code in the [`language`](#specifying-a-language) field (e.g., `en-GB`, `es-MX`, `pt-BR`) to steer it. See [Specifying a language](#specifying-a-language) below.
</Note>

<Note>
  Text normalization is language-specific, not locale-specific — English is normalized the same way whether you target `en-US` or `en-GB`, even though conventions for dates, currencies, and the like can differ. If you need locale-specific formatting, normalize that text yourself.
</Note>

<Note>
  **TTS-1.5:** `inworld-tts-1.5-max` and `inworld-tts-1.5-mini` support 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. For new multilingual projects, we recommend Realtime TTS-2.
</Note>

## Cross-lingual support

Regardless of model, a voice delivers the best speaker similarity when it speaks the language it was [cloned](/tts/voice-cloning) in — its native tongue.

When synthesizing a different language, the model families behave differently:

* **TTS 1.5** is not cross-lingual: it carries over the accent of the voice prompt (e.g., a French voice speaks English with a French accent).
* **Realtime TTS-2** supports cross-lingual synthesis and can do both, depending on how you use it: by default, it makes a best-effort attempt to speak the target language natively, without carrying over the original accent. If you want the voice to keep its original accent, prompt for it explicitly (e.g., with [steering](/tts/capabilities/steering)).

For the most natural, consistent cross-lingual results, we recommend [specifying the language](#specifying-a-language) to synthesize in and [localizing the voice](#voice-localization).

### Specifying a language

Use the `language` field to tell the model which language (as specified by a BCP-47 language tag) the voice should speak the text in. When set, the service will:

* Apply text normalization (if enabled) for the target language (e.g., speaking numbers in the target language).
* Use the voice's localized prompt for that language, if one exists. If no localized prompt is available, the model will be steered to speak in the target language.

When `language` is omitted, the original voice prompt is used and the language for normalization (if enabled) is auto-detected from the input text.

If you are sending short requests with only numbers or dates (e.g., `123-456-7890`), auto-detection may not have enough context to detect the right language. In those cases, we recommend specifying a language for most consistent results.

<Tip>A voice's native (prompt) language shapes how it sounds in other languages — speaker similarity is always highest in the voice's native tongue. For accent-free, native delivery in another language, [localize the voice](#voice-localization).</Tip>

### Voice localization

Voice localization adapts a voice to a target language so it sounds like a native speaker of that language — delivering fluent, natural speech without carrying over the accent of the voice's original language. (By contrast, [specifying a language](#specifying-a-language) on an un-localized voice may retain the original accent.) It is supported for all Inworld TTS models.

<Steps titleSize="h3">
  <Step title="Open the Voices page in Portal">
    In [Inworld Portal](https://platform.inworld.ai/), go to **Voices** and select the **My voices** tab. Hover over an English voice to open its details panel on the right.

    <Note>Voice localization is currently only supported for voices where the original audio was in English. Support for additional languages is coming soon.</Note>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Click Localize Voice">
    With a voice selected, click **Localize Voice** in the right panel.

    <img src="https://mintcdn.com/inworldai/Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ/img/tts/voices-localize.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ&q=85&s=a2efdf8c1447cac9d7e1809d93054ef4" alt="Voices page with Localize Voice action" width="1072" height="816" data-path="img/tts/voices-localize.png" />
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose a target language">
    Pick a target language from the dropdown and click **Localize**, which will start generating localized prompt candidates. This may take up to 2 minutes.

    <img src="https://mintcdn.com/inworldai/Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ/img/tts/localize-voice-select-language.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ&q=85&s=aa6b62ae3596051e5f00b92e452174de" alt="Localize Voice screen with target language dropdown" width="1072" height="481" data-path="img/tts/localize-voice-select-language.png" />
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review candidates">
    After generation, you'll see a few localized prompt candidates. Listen to each and pick the one that sounds most natural and native, then click **Save**.

    If none sound right, you can click **Regenerate**. You may want to change the script before regenerating, since the script influences the generated voice.

    <img src="https://mintcdn.com/inworldai/Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ/img/tts/localize-voice-review-candidates.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ&q=85&s=24704026e673ed0d0a807e0de5840086" alt="Review candidates screen with multiple localized voice options" width="1074" height="507" data-path="img/tts/localize-voice-review-candidates.png" />
  </Step>

  <Step title="Use the localized voice">
    Once saved, the voice will use your localized prompt when you specify the `language` to match the language of your localized prompt. Try it out in TTS Playground or via API (the voice ID remains the same).

    <img src="https://mintcdn.com/inworldai/Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ/img/tts/localized-voice-generation.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=Ys5C8kTgXfJhs_cQ&q=85&s=66d5cd5563e2e106f4fa778ad35846a5" alt="TTS Playground generating speech with a localized voice" width="1115" height="859" data-path="img/tts/localized-voice-generation.png" />
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Voice Cloning" icon="microphone" href="/tts/voice-cloning">
    Clone a voice once and reuse it across languages.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Custom Pronunciation" icon="spell-check" href="/tts/capabilities/custom-pronunciation">
    Use IPA notation to control pronunciation of proper nouns and edge cases.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>
