We are working on Arabic Natural Language Processing project, we have limited our choices to either write the code in Python or C++ (and Boost library). We are thinking of these points:

Python

Slower than C++ (There is ongoing work to make Python faster)
Better UTF8 support
Faster in writing tests and trying different algorithms

C++

Faster than Python
Familiar code, every programmer knows C or C-like code


After the project is done, it should be not very hard to port the project to another programming languages.
What do you think is better and suitable for the project?
IMO go for C/C++ simply because of the 'familiar' factor. Though LOC's will be more in C/C++ you will save time in understanding and testing.
NLP project, python or C++