diff --git a/spacy/language.py b/spacy/language.py
index 5a8c3e90c..283b19899 100644
--- a/spacy/language.py
+++ b/spacy/language.py
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import ujson
 from collections import OrderedDict
 import itertools
 import weakref
+import functools
 
 from .tokenizer import Tokenizer
 from .vocab import Vocab
@@ -19,14 +20,14 @@ from .syntax.parser import get_templates
 from .pipeline import NeuralDependencyParser, TokenVectorEncoder, NeuralTagger
 from .pipeline import NeuralEntityRecognizer, SimilarityHook, TextCategorizer
 
-from .compat import json_dumps, izip
+from .compat import json_dumps, izip, copy_reg
 from .scorer import Scorer
 from ._ml import link_vectors_to_models
 from .attrs import IS_STOP
 from .lang.punctuation import TOKENIZER_PREFIXES, TOKENIZER_SUFFIXES, TOKENIZER_INFIXES
 from .lang.tokenizer_exceptions import TOKEN_MATCH
 from .lang.tag_map import TAG_MAP
-from .lang.lex_attrs import LEX_ATTRS
+from .lang.lex_attrs import LEX_ATTRS, is_stop
 from . import util
 from . import about
 
@@ -42,7 +43,8 @@ class BaseDefaults(object):
         lemmatizer = cls.create_lemmatizer(nlp)
         lex_attr_getters = dict(cls.lex_attr_getters)
         # This is messy, but it's the minimal working fix to Issue #639.
-        lex_attr_getters[IS_STOP] = lambda string: string.lower() in cls.stop_words
+        lex_attr_getters[IS_STOP] = functools.partial(is_stop,
+                                                      stops=cls.stop_words)
         vocab = Vocab(lex_attr_getters=lex_attr_getters, tag_map=cls.tag_map,
                       lemmatizer=lemmatizer)
         for tag_str, exc in cls.morph_rules.items():
@@ -135,6 +137,10 @@ class Language(object):
         self.pipeline = []
         self._optimizer = None
 
+    def __reduce__(self):
+        bytes_data = self.to_bytes(vocab=False)
+        return (unpickle_language, (self.vocab, self.meta, bytes_data))
+
     @property
     def meta(self):
         self._meta.setdefault('lang', self.vocab.lang)
@@ -608,7 +614,7 @@ class Language(object):
         util.from_disk(path, deserializers, exclude)
         return self
 
-    def to_bytes(self, disable=[]):
+    def to_bytes(self, disable=[], **exclude):
         """Serialize the current state to a binary string.
 
         disable (list): Nameds of pipeline components to disable and prevent
@@ -626,7 +632,7 @@ class Language(object):
             if not hasattr(proc, 'to_bytes'):
                 continue
             serializers[i] = lambda proc=proc: proc.to_bytes(vocab=False)
-        return util.to_bytes(serializers, {})
+        return util.to_bytes(serializers, exclude)
 
     def from_bytes(self, bytes_data, disable=[]):
         """Load state from a binary string.
@@ -650,6 +656,12 @@ class Language(object):
         return self
 
 
+def unpickle_language(vocab, meta, bytes_data):
+    lang = Language(vocab=vocab)
+    lang.from_bytes(bytes_data)
+    return lang
+
+
 def _pipe(func, docs):
     for doc in docs:
         func(doc)