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

# Language Support

> Customize the conversation language using full language names supported by Tavus TTS engines.

## Supported languages

Tavus supports 42 languages for spoken interaction, powered by three integrated text-to-speech (TTS) engines: Cartesia, ElevenLabs, and Azure.
If a selected language is not supported by our default TTS engine (Cartesia), your CVI will automatically switch to ElevenLabs to kick off the conversation.

<Note>
  Language availability also depends on your selected **STT** model. Some models support a subset of these languages. See the [STT layer configuration](/sections/conversational-video-interface/persona/stt#supported-languages-by-model) for per-model language breakdowns.
</Note>

* English (en)
* French (fr)
* German (de)
* Spanish (es)
* Portuguese (pt)
* Chinese (zh)
* Japanese (ja)
* Hindi (hi)
* Italian (it)
* Korean (ko)
* Dutch (nl)
* Polish (pl)
* Russian (ru)
* Swedish (sv)
* Turkish (tr)
* Tagalog (tl)
* Bulgarian (bg)
* Romanian (ro)
* Arabic (ar)
* Czech (cs)
* Greek (el)
* Finnish (fi)
* Croatian (hr)
* Malay (ms)
* Slovak (sk)
* Danish (da)
* Tamil (ta)
* Ukrainian (uk)
* Hungarian (hu)
* Norwegian (no)
* Vietnamese (vi)
* Bengali (bn)
* Thai (th)
* Hebrew (he)
* Georgian (ka)
* Indonesian (id)
* Telugu (te)
* Gujarati (gu)
* Kannada (kn)
* Malayalam (ml)
* Marathi (mr)
* Punjabi (pa)

For a full list of supported languages for each TTS engine, please click on the following links:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Cartesia (default)" icon="c" href="https://docs.cartesia.ai/build-with-cartesia/tts-models/latest#language-support" cta="View supported languages" />

  <Card title="ElevenLabs" icon="tally-2" href="https://elevenlabs.io/docs/capabilities/text-to-speech#supported-languages" cta="View supported languages" />

  <Card title="Azure" icon="microsoft" href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/language-support?tabs=tts" cta="View supported languages" />
</CardGroup>

<Note>
  By default, Tavus uses the **Cartesia** TTS engine.
</Note>

## Setting the Conversation Language

To specify a language, use the `properties.language` parameter in the <a href="/api-reference/conversations/create-conversation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Create Conversation</a>. **You must use the full language name**, not a language code.

```shell cURL {9} theme={null}
curl --request POST \
  --url https://tavusapi.com/v2/conversations \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-api-key: <api_key>' \
  --data '{
  "persona_id": "pcb7a34da5fe",
  "replica_id": "r90bbd427f71",
  "properties": {
    "language": "spanish"
   }
}'
```

<Note>
  Language names must match exactly with those supported by the selected TTS engine.
</Note>

### Smart Language Detection

To automatically detect the participant’s spoken language throughout the conversation, set `language` to `multilingual` when creating the conversation:

```shell cURL {9} theme={null}
curl --request POST \
  --url https://tavusapi.com/v2/conversations \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'x-api-key: <api_key>' \
  --data '{
  "persona_id": "pcb7a34da5fe",
  "replica_id": "r90bbd427f71",
  "properties": {
    "language": "multilingual"
   }
}'
```

This enables the **STT** (speech-to-text) engine to automatically switch languages, dynamically adjusting the pipeline to transcribe and respond in the detected language throughout the conversation.

<Note>
  For the highest accuracy, we recommend setting a specific language rather than using `multilingual`. Smart Language Detection works best as a fallback when the participant's language is unknown ahead of time.
</Note>