Multi-Language Support¶

Kiwi ships with 15 languages out of the box. All user-facing strings, voice commands, wake word variants, hallucination filters, and security patterns are fully localized.

Available Languages¶

Code	Language	Code	Language
`en`	English	`tr`	Turkish
`ru`	Russian	`pl`	Polish
`es`	Spanish	`zh`	Chinese
`pt`	Portuguese	`ja`	Japanese
`fr`	French	`ko`	Korean
`it`	Italian	`hi`	Hindi
`de`	German	`ar`	Arabic
`id`	Indonesian

Switching Language¶

Via config.yaml¶

language: "en"

Via environment variable¶

KIWI_LANGUAGE=es python -m kiwi

Via REST API (runtime)¶

curl -X POST http://localhost:7789/api/language \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"language": "fr"}'

Via Dashboard¶

Use the Language panel dropdown and click Apply.

What Gets Localized¶

Each locale YAML file (kiwi/locales/{code}.yaml) contains 19 sections:

Section	Content
`system`	Voice system prompt for the LLM
`responses`	~37 spoken user-facing strings
`status`	Long-task status announcements
`security`	Warning messages, Telegram button labels
`speakers`	Speaker identification responses
`speaker_access`	Access control messages
`wake_word`	Keyword, typos, fuzzy blacklist
`hallucinations`	Whisper hallucination phrases/patterns
`text_processing`	Abbreviations, incomplete/complete patterns, emotion keywords
`security_patterns`	Dangerous command regexes
`dangerous_commands`	Example dangerous commands
`owner_commands`	Voice control command phrases
`owner_control_patterns`	Owner command regexes
`name_patterns`	Name extraction regexes and filter words
`commands`	Command keywords (stop, calibrate, approval, etc.)
`cli_errors`	CLI error messages
`ws_errors`	WebSocket error messages
`tool_activity`	Tool status descriptions
`tool_errors`	Tool error messages

Adding a New Language¶

Copy the English locale as a template:

cp kiwi/locales/en.yaml kiwi/locales/sv.yaml

Translate all string values. Preserve keys and {placeholder} tokens:

responses:
  greeting: "Hej! Jag är Kiwi..."
  heard: "Hörde: {command}"

Adapt language-specific sections that require linguistic knowledge:
- wake_word.typos — phonetic variants in the target language
- hallucinations.phrases — common Whisper hallucinations for that language
- text_processing — abbreviations and patterns
- security_patterns — dangerous command regexes in the target language
Set the language:
```
language: "sv"
```

i18n API¶

Internally, Kiwi uses the t() function from kiwi/i18n.py:

from kiwi.i18n import setup, t

setup("en", fallback="ru")       # Initialize
t("responses.greeting")           # → "Hello! I'm Kiwi..."
t("responses.heard", command=cmd) # → "Heard: {command}" with placeholder
t("hallucinations.phrases")       # → returns a list

Dot-notation key resolution
Automatic fallback to the fallback locale if a key is missing
Returns lists and dicts as-is for non-string values