diff --git a/pkgs/development/python-modules/nltk/default.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/nltk/default.nix
index 30496070153b..55831f7708ae 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/python-modules/nltk/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/nltk/default.nix
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 {
   lib,
+  pkgs,
   fetchPypi,
   buildPythonPackage,
   pythonOlder,
@@ -38,6 +39,10 @@ buildPythonPackage rec {
 
   pythonImportsCheck = [ "nltk" ];
 
+  passthru = {
+    data = pkgs.nltk-data;
+  };
+
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "Natural Language Processing ToolKit";
     mainProgram = "nltk";