diff --git a/spacy/errors.py b/spacy/errors.py
index 07c3df686..fb50f913d 100644
--- a/spacy/errors.py
+++ b/spacy/errors.py
@@ -483,6 +483,7 @@ class Errors:
     E199 = ("Unable to merge 0-length span at doc[{start}:{end}].")
 
     # TODO: fix numbering after merging develop into master
+    E955 = ("Can't find table '{table}' for language '{lang}' in spacy-lookups-data.")
     E956 = ("Can't find component '{name}' in [components] block in the config. "
             "Available components: {opts}")
     E957 = ("Writing directly to Language.factories isn't needed anymore in "
diff --git a/spacy/lookups.py b/spacy/lookups.py
index e5a4a0b40..bf71ba877 100644
--- a/spacy/lookups.py
+++ b/spacy/lookups.py
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ from .strings import get_string_id
 UNSET = object()
 
 
-@registry.language_data("spacy-lookups-data")
 def load_lookups(
     lang: str, tables: List[str], strict: bool = True
 ) -> Optional[Dict[str, Any]]:
@@ -23,6 +22,7 @@ def load_lookups(
     lang (str): The language code (corresponds to entry point exposed by
         the spacy-lookups-data package).
     tables (List[str]): Name of tables to load, e.g. ["lemma_lookup", "lemma_exc"]
+    strict (bool): Whether to raise an error if a table doesn't exist.
     RETURNS (Dict[str, Any]): The lookups, keyed by table name.
     """
     # TODO: import spacy_lookups_data instead of going via entry points here?
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ def load_lookups(
     for table in tables:
         if table not in data:
             if strict:
-                raise ValueError("TODO: unknown table")
+                raise ValueError(Errors.E955.format(table=table, lang=lang))
             language_data = {}
         else:
             language_data = load_language_data(data[table])
diff --git a/spacy/util.py b/spacy/util.py
index 3b6ba0f25..682d45bc9 100644
--- a/spacy/util.py
+++ b/spacy/util.py
@@ -62,7 +62,6 @@ class registry(thinc.registry):
     tokenizers = catalogue.create("spacy", "tokenizers", entry_points=True)
     lemmatizers = catalogue.create("spacy", "lemmatizers", entry_points=True)
     lookups = catalogue.create("spacy", "lookups", entry_points=True)
-    language_data = catalogue.create("spacy", "language_data", entry_points=True)
     displacy_colors = catalogue.create("spacy", "displacy_colors", entry_points=True)
     assets = catalogue.create("spacy", "assets", entry_points=True)
     # These are factories registered via third-party packages and the