diff --git a/libs/langchain/langchain/text_splitter.py b/libs/langchain/langchain/text_splitter.py
index be189548c1..2e5f7021f3 100644
--- a/libs/langchain/langchain/text_splitter.py
+++ b/libs/langchain/langchain/text_splitter.py
@@ -1081,7 +1081,9 @@ class RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(TextSplitter):
 class NLTKTextSplitter(TextSplitter):
     """Splitting text using NLTK package."""
 
-    def __init__(self, separator: str = "\n\n", **kwargs: Any) -> None:
+    def __init__(
+        self, separator: str = "\n\n", language: str = "english", **kwargs: Any
+    ) -> None:
         """Initialize the NLTK splitter."""
         super().__init__(**kwargs)
         try:
@@ -1093,11 +1095,12 @@ class NLTKTextSplitter(TextSplitter):
                 "NLTK is not installed, please install it with `pip install nltk`."
             )
         self._separator = separator
+        self._language = language
 
     def split_text(self, text: str) -> List[str]:
         """Split incoming text and return chunks."""
         # First we naively split the large input into a bunch of smaller ones.
-        splits = self._tokenizer(text)
+        splits = self._tokenizer(text, language=self._language)
         return self._merge_splits(splits, self._separator)