SharePoint linguistic search features

This post was most recently updated on July 26th, 2024.

5 min read.

I’ve been posting about different localization/globalization / multilingual options of SharePoint for quite some time. It’s a topic that’s kind of close to my heart, being a non-English speaker with a really difficult native language – one, that Microsoft always gets wrong even though it’s not for the lack of trying!

Weirdly enough, while Microsoft messes up the Finnish translation and localization all the time, they do detect and recognize the language surprisingly well.

Enough chitchat, though. In this post, I’m trying to present the languages SharePoint understands and can work with. I’ll do my best to keep the documentation up-to-date so that I can just refer to this page in the future whenever I need to.

Even on Modern sites, the language selection is still the good old (I'd love to say "Classic" but that would cause confusion) view we're all used to. And the list of supported "Alternate Languages" is pretty impressive! — Even on Modern sites, the language selection is still the good old (I’d love to say “Classic” but that would cause confusion) view we’re all used to. And the list of supported “Alternate Languages” is pretty impressive!

The styles on this page are going to be a bit weird since I had to find a way to fit this ridiculously wide table on the page somehow. Sorry about that!

DetectedLanguage example - it works perfectly with Bulgarian cyrillic letters! — DetectedLanguage example – it works perfectly with Bulgarian Cyrillic letters!

The massive table below (adapted from Microsoft’s documentation) describes all of the languages SharePoint understands well enough to use language detection for your documents.

While the original documentation is for SharePoint Server (2013, 2016 and 2019), it seems to be valid for SharePoint Online as well.

Which languages can SharePoint detect and work with automatically?

Language	Code	Document language detection	Word breaking	Stemming	Spelling variants	Spelling correction, static	Spelling correction, dynamic	Decompounding	Fuzzy name matching	Company name extraction
Afrikaans	af	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Albanian	sq	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Arabic	ar	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	Yes
Armenian	hy	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Azerbaijani	az	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Bangla	bn	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Basque (Basque)	eu	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Belarusian	be	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Bosnian	bs	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Breton	br	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Bulgarian	bg	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Catalan	ca	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Chinese Simplified	zh-cn	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Not applicable	No	No
Chinese Traditional	zh-tw	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Not applicable	No	No
Croatian	hr	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Czech	cs	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Danish	da	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Dutch	nl	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
English	en	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Estonian	et	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Faeroese	fo	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Farsi	fa	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Filipino	tl	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Finnish	fi	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
French	fr	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Frisian	fy	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Galician	gl	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Georgian	ka	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
German	de	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Greek	el	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Gujarati	gu	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Hausa	ha	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Hebrew	he	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Hindi	hi	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Hungarian	hu	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Icelandic	is	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Indonesian	id	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Irish Gaelic	ga	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Italian	it	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Japanese	ja	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Kannada	kn	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Kazakh	kk	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Kirghiz	ky	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Korean	ko	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Not applicable	No	No
Kurdish	ku	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Latin	la	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Latvian	lv	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Lithuanian	lt	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Luxembourgish	lb	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Macedonian	mk	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Malay	ms	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Malayalam	ml	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Maltese	mt	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Maori	mi	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Marathi	mr	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Mongolian	mn	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Norwegian Bokmål	nb	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Norwegian Nynorsk	nn	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	Yes
Pashto	ps	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Polish	pl	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	No
Portuguese	pt	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Punjabi	pa	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Romanian	ro	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Romansh	rm	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Russian	ru	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Sami Nothern	se	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Serbian	sr	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Slovak	sk	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Slovenian	sl	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Sorbian	wen	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Spanish	es	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Yes	Yes
Swahili	sw	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Swedish	sv	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Tamil	ta	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Telugu	te	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Thai	th	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Turkish	tr	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Ukrainian	uk	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Urdu	ur	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Uzbek	uz	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Vietnamese	vi	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Welsh	cy	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Yiddish	yi	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No
Zulu	zu	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Not applicable	No	No

This content is from here: Microsoft’s documentation for primarily on-premises SharePoint linguistical capabilities – in this context, also applies to SharePoint Online!

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Antti K. Koskela

Developer / Speaker / Consultant at Koskila / Precio Fishbone / Norppandalotti Software Co / Alter - Experience Ideas Ltd

Antti Koskela is a proud digital native nomadic millennial full stack developer (is that enough funny buzzwords? That's definitely enough funny buzzwords!), who works as Solutions Architect for Precio Fishbone, building delightful Digital Workplaces.

He's been a developer from 2004 (starting with PHP and Java), and he's been working on .NET projects, Azure, Office 365, SharePoint and a lot of other stuff. He's also Microsoft MVP for Azure.

This is his personal professional (e.g. professional, but definitely personal) blog.

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