diff --git a/app/multilinguality.py b/app/multilinguality.py
index 81f4a8d..6a88b27 100644
--- a/app/multilinguality.py
+++ b/app/multilinguality.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from os.path import dirname, join, realpath, isfile
+from os.path import dirname, join, realpath, isfile, isdir
 
 def read_language_codes():
     dir_path = dirname(dirname(realpath(__file__)))
@@ -14,6 +14,9 @@ def read_stopwords(lang):
     dir_path = dirname(dirname(realpath(__file__)))
     ling_dir = join(dir_path,'app','ling','stopwords')
     STOPWORDS = []
+    if not isdir(ling_dir) or not isfile(join(ling_dir,lang)):
+        return STOPWORDS
+
     with open(join(ling_dir,lang),'r') as f:
         STOPWORDS = f.read().splitlines()
     return STOPWORDS