Searching for items in languages other than English

Limiting by language

Before the search

The Avanced Keyword search screen includes a language drop-down menu which allows you to select a language before conducting a search. You can select more than one language by pressing the CTRL key on your keyboard and then selecting the options you want.

After the search

Any search can be limited by language. After obtaining the results of your search, click the limit/sort search button, or if your search was a keyword search select the modify search button. Select the language you require from the language drop-down menu, then click the limit/sort items retrieved using above data bar below, or for a keyword search click the search button.

The following languages are available from the drop-down menu: Arabic, Aust. Aboriginal, Celtic Group, Chinese, Dutch, English, English Middle, English Old, French, German, Greek Ancient, Greek Modern, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Spanish.

How to limit by languages other than those on the drop-down menu

If the language you require is not available in the drop-down menu, you can limit your search using the following method:

  1. Look up the three-letter code for your language in the list of languages below. The language code is usually (but not always) the first three letters of the language, eg vie for Vietnamese; ara for Arabic; arc for Aramaic.
  2. In the Advanced Keyword search screen enter your search and then add the following: and lang:langxyz, where xyz stands for the three-letter language code.

Example: a search for short stories and lang:langvie will find short stories in Vietnamese.

Older material

If you are looking for older material, especially items acquired before 1971, you should avoid using the language limit. It will prevent you from finding such material, even if it is written in a language other than English. Search by keywords, author or title only, without using any limits. You should also consult the card catalogues.

Printable version

List of languages [PDF]