---
title: Navigator.language
slug: Web/API/Navigator/language
tags:
  - API
  - Language
  - Navigator
  - Property
  - Read-only
  - Reference
browser-compat: api.Navigator.language
---
{{APIRef("HTML DOM")}}

The **`Navigator.language`** read-only property returns
a string representing the preferred language of the user, usually the language of the
browser UI.

## Syntax

```js
const lang = navigator.language
```

### Value

A {{domxref("DOMString")}}. _`lang`_ stores a string representing the
language version as defined in {{RFC(5646, "Tags for Identifying Languages (also known as BCP 47)")}}. Examples of valid language
codes include "en", "en-US", "fr", "fr-FR", "es-ES", etc.

Note that in Safari on iOS prior to 10.2, the country code returned is lowercase:
"en-us", "fr-fr" etc.

## Example

```js
if (/^en\b/.test(navigator.language)) {
  doLangSelect(window.navigator.language);
}
```

## Specifications

{{Specifications}}

## Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

## See also

- {{domxref("navigator.languages")}}
- {{domxref("navigator")}}
