diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index f48e22e0..73e9eac5 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ dependencies = [
     "fasttext-wheel==0.9.2",
     "fsspec>=2023.6.0",
     "msgspec>=0.14.2",
-    "nltk==3.8.1",
+    "nltk>=3.9.1",
     "omegaconf>=2.3.0",
     # "pycld2==0.41",
     # "pycld3==0.22",       # does not install correctly