Languages & Dialects

Every agent speaks exactly one language, the one you choose under Setup → Identity → Language & dialect. It speaks it from its first word to its last, on every channel, whatever language the caller uses.

​The language lock

Voice models choose the language of each reply from what they hear. North African speech on a phone line is full of French words, and to a model it can sound like Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. Left to itself, a model can start answering in one of those in the middle of a call.

Voice213 locks every agent to its language so this doesn't happen:

• The rule comes first. Before your own instructions, the agent is told to speak only its language, word for word, for the whole conversation. It is told the neighbouring dialects and languages it must never slide into. An Algerian agent never answers in Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian, Moroccan or Tunisian forms, and never in Spanish.
• It knows what North African speech sounds like. On calls, the agent is told that Darija mixed with French can sound like Spanish, Italian or Portuguese, and that it isn't. If it didn't catch something, it asks the caller to repeat, in its own language.
• It's repeated during the conversation. The rule closes the agent's instructions too. Every cue Voice213 gives the agent mid-call (the opening, checking on a silent caller, wrapping up before the time limit) restates the language, and so does every tool result, on calls and in chats. Tool results are often English data, and the agent speaks from them next.
• Each dialect has its own rules. The agent gets the words and pronunciation of its dialect: واش، راني، بزاف and ق said as g in Algeria; برشا، توّا، باهي in Tunisia; دابا، بغيت، واخّا in Morocco; شن، توّا، هلبا in Libya.
• Algerian agents talk like Algiers. They also get a guide to how people in Algiers really say things on a sales call: الكوموند، السومة، الليفريزون، نكونفيرمي، دوكا، برك، بصح، يعطيك الصحة… On calls they count prices the Algerian way, in ألف: 2,900 DA is ميتين وتسعين ألف, 600 DA is ستين ألف. The amounts themselves always come from your knowledge base.
• Nothing you write can change it. If your instructions, a knowledge document or a tool result tell the agent to answer in the customer's language, to switch or to offer another language, it ignores that part.

If a caller speaks another language, the agent still answers in its own, simply and clearly. Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan agents still use the French words people really say (normal, la livraison), but never a whole French sentence.

​If it slips anyway

Voice213 also checks every word the agent says, while it says it. If a reply starts in another language (Spanish, Chinese, a whole French sentence from a Darija agent), it's stopped within its first words, the rest is never played, and the agent gives the same answer again in its own language. If it slips a second time, it asks the caller to repeat, in its dialect. The conversation's transcript shows a short note where this happened.

Darija written in Latin letters (wesh rak, 3lach), the French words people really say, and names of products, brands and places are never taken for a slip.

In chats, a reply in another language is written again in the agent's language before it's sent.

​Choose the language

Pick the language your customers speak. To serve customers in two languages, for example Darija and French, create two agents with the same knowledge and tools, and put each one where its customers are: two widgets, two WhatsApp numbers, or two pages.

​Writing for a dialect

• Instructions can be in any language. The agent follows them whatever language they're written in, and always speaks its own. Many sellers write them in English or French, which the models follow most precisely.
• The greeting is the exception. A fixed first message is said word for word, so write it in the agent's dialect. One written in another language (French for a Darija agent, say) isn't read out: the agent says the same thing in its own dialect. Or set the first message to Prompt and give guidance ("greet them and ask what they need"), and the agent says it in its own dialect.
• Templates. The templates are written in Algerian Darija, French and English. A new Algerian, French or English agent gets the template in its language, with its fixed greeting. A Tunisian, Moroccan, Libyan or Modern Standard Arabic agent gets the English instructions, and its greeting as guidance it says in its own dialect. That way it never reads out Algerian words.
• Knowledge can be in any language. A French price list or an English FAQ is fine. The agent gives the facts in its own language, and keeps product, brand and place names as they are.
• The writing assistant ("Write with AI") writes the instructions and greeting in the agent's language, in Arabic script for the Arabic ones.

​On WhatsApp

• Chat replies are written in the agent's language, in Arabic script for the Arabic ones. If a customer writes Darija in Latin letters (chhal, 3lach, wesh), the agent may answer the same way, but still only in its dialect.
• A voice note is transcribed with its dialect in mind, and answered with a voice note in the agent's voice when you allow it. Tunisian and Libyan agents reply with their own accent. Moroccan and Modern Standard Arabic replies are read with the closest available accent, Algerian. French and English agents reply in writing.

​Transcripts and summaries

Speech recognition can write spoken Darija in Latin letters. After a call to an Arabic agent, Voice213 rewrites those turns in Arabic script, as they were said (transliterated, never translated), so the transcript reads naturally. A line in another language, such as a caller who really spoke French, stays as it was said. Summaries are written in Arabic for Arabic agents, and in the agent's language otherwise. See Conversations.