diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2aaf65bc..564af90f 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -381,7 +381,7 @@ The following command-line options can be used to control its operation:
 * --all-languages: extract words for all available languages
 * --language-code LANGUAGE_CODE: extracts the given language (this option may be specified multiple times; defaults to dump file language code and `mul`(Translingual))
 * --language-name LANGUAGE_NAME: Similar to `--language-code` except this option accepts language name
-* --edition LANGUAGE_CODE: specifies the language code for the Wiktionary edition that the dump file is for (defaults to "en"; other supported editions are listed in `-h` help descriptions)
+* --edition LANGUAGE_CODE: specifies the language code for the Wiktionary edition that the dump file is for (supported editions are listed in `-h` help descriptions)
 * --skip-extraction: Used to create a database file from the dump file without waiting for the extraction process to complete.
 * --all: causes all data to be captured for the selected languages
 * --translations: causes translations to be captured
diff --git a/src/wiktextract/wiktwords.py b/src/wiktextract/wiktwords.py
index 6e2e5fb9..6d3f5983 100755
--- a/src/wiktextract/wiktwords.py
+++ b/src/wiktextract/wiktwords.py
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ def main():
         "--dump-file-language-code",
         "--edition",
         type=str,
-        default="en",
+        required=True,
         choices=sorted(
             [
                 p.stem