Every language WhisperAI supports.
WhisperAI transcribes 100+ languages and regional variants from audio and video, streams 18 of them live, and translates a finished transcript into 87 target languages. The table below is generated from the same lists the product and the Developer API use, so the codes here are exactly the codes an API request accepts.
WhisperAI supported languages: four lists
“Supported” means something different for each capability, and the lists genuinely differ. A language can be transcribable but not offered as a translation target, or available for uploaded files but not for live streaming.
100+ transcription languages and variants
Upload audio or video and get text back: 98 languages and 101 request codes in total, because English is offered in four regional variants. Leave the language on auto-detect and WhisperAI picks it per file.
18 realtime languages
Live streaming transcription runs on a smaller, curated set than file transcription. Anything outside it should be transcribed as a file.
16 multi-language languages
Multi-language (code-switching) mode handles recordings where speakers move between languages mid-sentence, across this subset.
87 translation targets
Translate a finished transcript into other languages — 91 target codes once regional variants of English and Chinese are counted separately.
Supported languages and language codes
Search by language name or ISO code, or filter by the capability you need. Languages with a dedicated guide link through to it.
Showing all 100+ languages and variants.
| Language | ISO code | Transcription | Realtime | Multi-language | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | |||||
| Afrikaans | af | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Albanian | sq | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Amharic | am | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Arabic | ar | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Armenian | hy | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Assamese | as | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Azerbaijani | az | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| B | |||||
| Bashkir | ba | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Basque | eu | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Belarusian | be | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Bengali | bn | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Bosnian | bs | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Breton | br | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Bulgarian | bg | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Burmese | my | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| C | |||||
| Catalan | ca | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Chinese | zh, zh-CN, zh-TW | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Croatian | hr | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Czech | cs | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| D | |||||
| Danish | da | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Dutch | nl | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| E | |||||
| English | en, en_au, en_uk, en_us | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Estonian | et | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| F | |||||
| Faroese | fo | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Finnish | fi | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| French | fr | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| G | |||||
| Galician | gl | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Georgian | ka | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| German | de | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Greek | el | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Gujarati | gu | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| H | |||||
| Haitian | ht | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Hausa | ha | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Hawaiian | haw | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Hebrew | he | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Hindi | hi | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Hungarian | hu | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| I | |||||
| Icelandic | is | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Indonesian | id | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Italian | it | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| J | |||||
| Japanese | ja | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Javanese | jw | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| K | |||||
| Kannada | kn | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Kazakh | kk | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Khmer | km | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Korean | ko | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported |
| L | |||||
| Lao | lo | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Latin | la | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Latvian | lv | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Lingala | ln | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Lithuanian | lt | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Luxembourgish | lb | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| M | |||||
| Macedonian | mk | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Malagasy | mg | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Malay | ms | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Malayalam | ml | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Maltese | mt | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Maori | mi | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Marathi | mr | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Mongolian | mn | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| N | |||||
| Nepali | ne | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Norwegian | no | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Norwegian Nynorsk | nn | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| O | |||||
| Occitan | oc | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| P | |||||
| Panjabi | pa | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Pashto | ps | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Persian | fa | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Polish | pl | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported |
| Portuguese | pt | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| R | |||||
| Romanian | ro | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Russian | ru | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported |
| S | |||||
| Sanskrit | sa | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Serbian | sr | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Shona | sn | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Sindhi | sd | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Sinhala | si | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Slovak | sk | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Slovenian | sl | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Somali | so | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Spanish | es | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Sundanese | su | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Swahili | sw | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Swedish | sv | Supported | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| T | |||||
| Tagalog | tl | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Tajik | tg | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Tamil | ta | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Tatar | tt | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Telugu | te | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Thai | th | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Tibetan | bo | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Turkish | tr | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Turkmen | tk | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| U | |||||
| Ukrainian | uk | Supported | Not supported | Supported | Supported |
| Urdu | ur | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Uzbek | uz | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| V | |||||
| Vietnamese | vi | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| W | |||||
| Welsh | cy | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Y | |||||
| Yiddish | yi | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Yoruba | yo | Supported | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
English is available as four regional codes — en (Global), en_us, en_uk and en_au — and Chinese has separate Simplified (zh-CN) and Traditional (zh-TW) translation targets. That is why the code counts (101 transcription, 91 translation) are higher than the language counts.
How language selection works
Auto-detect is the default
Leave the language unset and WhisperAI detects it per file. Set it explicitly when you already know the language and the audio is short, noisy or heavily accented — pinning the language stops detection from drifting mid-recording.
Mixed-language recordings have their own mode
If speakers switch languages inside one recording, use multi-language mode rather than picking a single language. It covers 16 languages today; outside that set, pick the dominant language of the recording.
Realtime covers fewer languages
Live streaming transcription runs on a curated set of 18 languages. Everything else in the table is available for uploaded audio and video files.
Translation runs after transcription
Translation is a separate step on a completed transcript, not a different way of transcribing. One request can name several target languages at once, and each target is billed separately on audio duration × number of languages. See plans and pricing for the current rates.
Accuracy is not uniform
Support means a language is accepted and transcribed, not that every language performs identically. Widely spoken languages with abundant training data are the most accurate; smaller languages are usable but measurably weaker, and audio quality moves the result more than the language choice does. Test your own audio before committing to a language-critical workflow.
Related pages
Building on the API? The Developer API accepts these same codes, and the API documentation covers the transcription and translation endpoints. For a walkthrough of the product itself, see AI transcription and all product features.
Frequently asked questions
How many languages does WhisperAI support?
WhisperAI transcribes 100+ languages and regional variants from audio and video: 98 languages and 101 language codes, because English is available in Global, US, British and Australian variants. A completed transcript can then be translated into 87 target languages (91 codes). Live realtime streaming covers a curated set of 18 languages.
How many languages does OpenAI's Whisper support?
OpenAI's Whisper has 100 language codes in its tokenizer, and OpenAI says the model was trained on 98 languages; the large-v3 model added the 100th code, Cantonese. Accuracy varies by language and is highest for languages with the most training audio. WhisperAI transcribes 100+ languages and regional variants using Whisper's own codes: 98 languages, with English in Global, US, British and Australian versions. Albanian and Cantonese audio is not transcribed yet; choose Chinese for Cantonese audio.
Does WhisperAI use the same language codes as Whisper?
Yes, for every language they share, including jw for Javanese. WhisperAI adds en_au, en_uk and en_us for Australian, British and US English.
What is the difference between a transcription language and a translation language?
A transcription language is one WhisperAI can listen to and turn into text. A translation target is a language an existing transcript can be rendered into afterwards. The two lists overlap heavily but are not identical — a handful of languages can be transcribed but are not offered as translation targets, and Albanian is offered as a translation target only.
Do I have to tell WhisperAI which language the recording is in?
No. Automatic language detection is the default and is right for the overwhelming majority of files. Set the language explicitly when you already know it and the audio is noisy, heavily accented, or short — a fixed language stops detection from drifting.
What if a recording contains more than one language?
Switch it to multi-language mode, which is built for code-switching — speakers moving between languages within the same recording. That mode currently covers 16 languages.
Is accuracy the same in every language?
No. Accuracy is highest in the widely spoken languages with the most training data — English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese and Chinese among them — and lower in languages with less available speech data. Audio quality, accent, crosstalk and background noise move accuracy more than the choice of language does. If a language matters commercially to you, test it on your own audio first.
Which languages does the Developer API support?
The same lists. Pass a language code on the transcription request (or omit it for auto-detect), and pass an array of target language codes to the translation endpoint. The codes on this page are exactly the values the API accepts.
Can I translate a transcript into several languages at once?
Yes. One translation request can name any number of target languages. Each target language is billed separately, on audio duration multiplied by the number of languages.
Transcribe in the language you actually work in.
Upload a file, let WhisperAI detect the language, and translate the transcript afterwards if you need it in more.