Add a natural-language filter to repository search

[aknoenag]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Code Search and Navigation

Body

Add a natural-language filter to repository search

GitHub repository search supports filtering by programming language, but not by the natural language used in repository descriptions, README files, or documentation.

A native filter for documentation language would make repository search significantly more useful, especially for users who want to find projects they can actually read, evaluate, and use.

For example, a new qualifier could look like this:

documentation-language:en
-documentation-language:zh

The exact syntax is only illustrative.

Use cases

• Exclude repositories whose documentation is written in a language the user cannot read
• Search specifically for repositories with English, German, Chinese, or other documentation
• Reduce irrelevant search results
• Avoid manually copying foreign-language words or Unicode characters into every search query
• Improve repository discovery for international users

The filter could evaluate:

• Repository descriptions
• README files
• Documentation files
• Optionally issues and discussions

This should remain separate from the existing language: qualifier, because that filter refers to programming languages such as Python, Rust, or JavaScript.

Even approximate language detection would already be useful. It would not need to be perfect to improve search results significantly.

A related discussion, #179316, proposes better support for localized README files. That could help GitHub identify available documentation languages, but it does not provide a way to filter repository search results by those languages.

A separate discussion, #65220, concerns filtering recommendations by programming language. This proposal addresses a different issue: the human language used in repository documentation.

Would GitHub consider adding a natural-language or documentation-language qualifier to repository search?

[github-actions[bot]]

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[lgustavopuga]

This is a fantastic feature request! A native documentation-language filter would make repository discovery much more accessible and global.

While we wait for GitHub's product team to consider this proposal, here are a few practical workarounds you can use to filter search results by natural language today:

• Search for English stop words: To find Python projects with English docs, include common English words in your query:
  language:Python "the" "and" in:readme
• Exclude specific languages: If you want to filter out documentation in languages you can't read, exclude high-frequency characters (e.g., Chinese characters):
  language:Python -的 -是 in:readme
• Target localized README patterns: Many multi-lingual projects use language-specific suffixes. To target or exclude them, try:
  filename:README.zh.md or path:docs/zh/

Hopefully, GitHub implements this native qualifier soon! I've upvoted this feedback.