Thank you, this is a good point.
You are right that Korean already exists in the official BIP-39 wordlists, and using a different TZUR-specific Korean list can create unnecessary confusion.
The goal of TZUR’s multilingual layer is not to replace BIP-39 or create a new seed standard. The canonical recovery phrase remains the standard English BIP-39 mnemonic. The localized words are only a deterministic display layer mapped back to the English BIP-39 indexes.
I agree that for languages already included in official BIP-39, we should either use the official list or remove the custom version. That would reduce confusion and make compatibility expectations clearer.
The main risk is exactly what you mentioned: users may assume the localized words can be restored in any wallet. This needs to be clearly explained in the UI and documentation. The English BIP-39 phrase is the portable backup. The localized display should be treated as wallet-specific unless it uses an official BIP-39 list.
I appreciate the feedback and will review the existing language lists accordingly.
The English BIP39 mnemonic remains the source of truth.
Perhaps this is a mistranslation?
Because "
source of truth" sounds nothing like a technical term.
Do you mean the "
entropy"?
So, in other words, the mnemonic remains in English when used to derive the binary seed.
Your implementation just maps it to other unsupported languages for native language backup, but everything in the background follows BIP39 spec, correct?
Should something like this stay outside BIP39 as a wallet-specific UX layer?
The main problem that I'm seeing is if it's wallet-specific:
Non-tech savvy users might rely too much on the "
translated mnemonic" as a backup and will come into issue when they try to restore it to others wallets that did not implement this.
Even though BIP39 is still used in the background, the translated mnemonic itself will cause incompatibilities if it's not implemented by the majority of the wallets.
So something like this should be an update to BIP39 standard rather than wallet-specific.
But I think updating the
BIP39 word list to accommodate other languages should be enough if updating BIP39 is an option.
That way, it wont need any mapping and just derives that binary seed directly from the normalized local characters.
Thank you, that is a good clarification.
You are right that “source of truth” was not the most precise technical wording.
What I meant is:
The wallet generates standard BIP-39 entropy.
That entropy is encoded into the standard English BIP-39 mnemonic.
The English mnemonic is then used normally to derive the binary seed according to the BIP-39 spec.
The localized words are only a deterministic display layer mapped by index to the English BIP-39 wordlist.
So yes, everything in the background still follows BIP-39. The localized phrase is not used directly as the BIP-39 mnemonic unless that language is already an official BIP-39 wordlist and the implementation explicitly supports it.
I also agree with your concern about wallet-specific UX. The biggest risk is that non-technical users may treat the translated phrase as a universal backup and later try to restore it in another wallet that does not support the same mapping. That would create a bad recovery experience, even if the underlying English BIP-39 phrase is still valid.
That is why I am leaning toward one of two safer approaches:
1. For languages that already exist in official BIP-39, use the official list only.
2. For languages not included in BIP-39, clearly label the localized phrase as a TZUR display layer and always provide/export the standard English BIP-39 recovery phrase as the portable backup.
I understand your point that if this is meant to be broadly interoperable, it should ideally be standardized rather than wallet-specific. A wallet-specific mapping can improve UX, but it cannot create ecosystem compatibility by itself.
Updating or extending BIP-39 wordlists would be the cleaner interoperability path, because wallets could derive the seed directly from the normalized local-language mnemonic without requiring a separate mapping layer. The hard part is that such lists need very careful native review, uniqueness rules, normalization rules, typo resistance, and broad wallet adoption.
So for now, I think the safest framing is:
This should not be presented as “translated BIP-39” unless it is actually using an official BIP-39 wordlist.
It should be presented as a localized display layer, with the English BIP-39 mnemonic remaining the portable recovery phrase.
I appreciate the correction. I will adjust the wording to be more technically accurate.
Mod note: Consecutive posts merged
