lingua-language-detector
An accurate natural language detection library, suitable for short text and mixed-language text
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, supports current Python versions, and fills a genuine need for accurate short-text language detection without external dependencies. Medium install friction is acceptable given the performance gains from compiled bindings. Suitable for production NLP pipelines and preprocessing workflows.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.12 or later; compiled wheels available for common platforms but may require compilation on unsupported architectures.
- Medium install friction due to compiled wheels; the package provides prebuilt binaries for Python 3.12, 3.13, and 3.14 across macOS, Linux, and Windows architectures.
- Actively maintained with recent releases and no known vulnerabilities.
License · maintenance · safety
permissive license (permissive) — Licensed under Apache Software License (permissive), allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions.
last release 2026-03-09 (158 days) · last repo commit 2026-03-26 · 1,118 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 2,747,868 downloads/mo, #2,908 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install lingua-language-detector
from lingua import Language, LanguageDetectorBuilder
detector = LanguageDetectorBuilder.from_all_languages().build()
result = detector.detect_language("This is an English sentence")
print(result) # Language.ENGLISH- Whether the library can be used offline after installation (description claims offline capability but runtime behavior unspecified)
- Memory footprint and performance characteristics in production deployments
- Accuracy on code-mixed or transliterated text not covered in the fact sheet
What it is and what it does
Lingua is a language detection library that identifies which of 75 supported languages a given text is written in. It uses compiled Rust bindings for performance and combines rule-based and statistical Naive Bayes methods without relying on neural networks, dictionaries, or external APIs. The library is designed to work well on both long documents and short text fragments like tweets or single words, addressing a gap left by heavier NLP frameworks that often struggle with brief inputs.
The package started as pure Python but was rewritten with Rust bindings from version 2.0.0 onward to balance speed and memory efficiency. It requires Python 3.12 or later and has no runtime dependencies, making it straightforward to integrate into preprocessing pipelines for text classification, spell checking, email routing, and other NLP tasks where language identification is a preliminary step.
Use it for
- Preprocess multilingual datasets for NLP tasks by filtering or routing text based on detected language
- Route customer support emails to geographically appropriate teams based on message language
- Identify language in social media posts or user-generated content for content moderation or analysis
- Validate or correct language metadata in text corpora before training machine learning models
- Detect language in short queries or snippets where heavier frameworks perform poorly
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, supports current Python versions, and fills a genuine need for accurate short-text language detection without external dependencies. Medium install friction is acceptable given the performance gains from compiled bindings. Suitable for production NLP pipelines and preprocessing workflows.
Install
lingua-language-detector on PyPI
Before you install
Medium install friction due to compiled wheels; the package provides prebuilt binaries for Python 3.12, 3.13, and 3.14 across macOS, Linux, and Windows architectures. Actively maintained with recent releases and no known vulnerabilities.
Requires Python 3.12 or later; compiled wheels available for common platforms but may require compilation on unsupported architectures.
License in practice
Licensed under Apache Software License (permissive), allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions.
Quickstart
pip install lingua-language-detector
from lingua import Language, LanguageDetectorBuilder
detector = LanguageDetectorBuilder.from_all_languages().build()
result = detector.detect_language("This is an English sentence")
print(result) # Language.ENGLISHVerify before relying
- Whether the library can be used offline after installation (description claims offline capability but runtime behavior unspecified)
- Memory footprint and performance characteristics in production deployments
- Accuracy on code-mixed or transliterated text not covered in the fact sheet
Package facts
| License | permissive license permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.12 |
| Install friction | Medium. Platform-specific wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 158 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 2,747,868 / month, #2,908 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: Information TechnologyIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchLicense :: OSI Approved :: Apache Software LicenseNatural Language :: AfrikaansNatural Language :: ArabicNatural Language :: BasqueNatural Language :: BengaliNatural Language :: BosnianNatural Language :: BulgarianNatural Language :: CatalanNatural Language :: Chinese (Simplified)Natural Language :: Chinese (Traditional)Natural Language :: CroatianNatural Language :: CzechNatural Language :: DanishNatural Language :: DutchNatural Language :: EnglishNatural Language :: EsperantoNatural Language :: FinnishNatural Language :: FrenchNatural Language :: GermanNatural Language :: GreekNatural Language :: HebrewNatural Language :: HindiNatural Language :: HungarianNatural Language :: IcelandicNatural Language :: IndonesianNatural Language :: IrishNatural Language :: ItalianNatural Language :: JapaneseNatural Language :: KoreanNatural Language :: LatinNatural Language :: LatvianNatural Language :: LithuanianNatural Language :: MacedonianNatural Language :: MalayNatural Language :: MarathiNatural Language :: NorwegianNatural Language :: PanjabiNatural Language :: PersianNatural Language :: PolishNatural Language :: PortugueseNatural Language :: RomanianNatural Language :: RussianNatural Language :: SerbianNatural Language :: SlovakNatural Language :: SlovenianNatural Language :: SpanishNatural Language :: SwedishNatural Language :: TamilNatural Language :: TeluguNatural Language :: ThaiNatural Language :: TurkishNatural Language :: UkrainianNatural Language :: UrduNatural Language :: VietnameseOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Programming Language :: RustTopic :: Scientific/Engineering :: Information AnalysisTopic :: Software Development :: InternationalizationTopic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python ModulesTopic :: Software Development :: LocalizationTopic :: Text Processing :: LinguisticTyping :: Typed |
Evidence: lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-musllinux_1_2_aarch64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-musllinux_1_2_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp312-cp312-win_arm64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-musllinux_1_2_aarch64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-musllinux_1_2_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-win_amd64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp313-cp313-win_arm64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp314-cp314-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp314-cp314-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp314-cp314-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl; lingua_language_detector-2.2.0-cp314-cp314-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl
Tags
Let your AI agent find packages like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 14,416 PyPI packages by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “short text language detection”
- lingua-language-detectorDetects which language a text is written in, supporting 75 languages…
- langdetectDetects the language of text input, supporting 55 languages and…
- pycld3Detects the language of text using Google's Compact Language Detector…
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat.
More Python Modules packages
Converts domain names between Unicode and ASCII-compatible encoding (Punycode) according to IDNA 2008 and Unicode Technical Standard 46, with security validation and broader script coverage than the standard library.
Install it if you work with internationalized domain names, need to validate domains, or use HTTP clients that depend on it transitively.
Setuptools is a Python build backend and package management tool that handles building, distributing, and installing Python packages, including support for C/C++ extension modules.
PyYAML parses and emits YAML 1.1 data format, enabling serialization and deserialization of configuration files and Python objects to and from human-readable YAML text.
Pydantic validates Python data structures against type hints, coercing and checking input at runtime to ensure it matches a declared schema.
Provides reusable metadata objects for use with PEP-593 `typing.Annotated` to express common constraints like bounds, collection sizes, and predicates on types.
Install it if you use or build libraries that need to express type constraints in a standardized, inspectable way—or if you want to annotate your own types with…
Provides runtime tools to inspect and introspect Python type annotations, enabling programmatic examination of type hints at execution time.
See also langdetect · spacy-language-detection · silpa_common · gcld3 · py3langid · fasttext-langdetect · langid · pycld2 · cld3-py · wn