How Can I Detect a Browser's Preferred Language Using JavaScript?

JavaScript for detecting browser language preference

Detecting the browser's preferred language using JavaScript can be a challenge, as it's not directly accessible through navigator.language. This is because browser settings affect the HTTP 'Accept-Language' header, which is not accessible via JavaScript.

To overcome this limitation, a workaround is to use a third-party service like Google App Engine. Here's how it works:

1. Create a Google App Engine script: Host a script at https://ajaxhttpheaders.appspot.com. This script will return the HTTP request headers via JSONP.
2. Make an AJAX request: Use jQuery or a similar library to make an AJAX request to the Google App Engine script.
3. Parse the response: The response will contain the 'Accept-Language' header. You can then use the parsed language value.

Here's an example code in jQuery:

$.ajax({
    url: "http://ajaxhttpheaders.appspot.com", 
    dataType: 'jsonp', 
    success: function(headers) {
        language = headers['Accept-Language'];
        nowDoSomethingWithIt(language);
    }
});

Note that this hack is only recommended if you don't have a back end to perform this task.

For a more convenient solution, you can use the jQuery-Browser-Language plugin available at https://github.com/dansingerman/jQuery-Browser-Language.

Here's the code running on AppEngine:

class MainPage(webapp.RequestHandler):
    def get(self):
        headers = self.request.headers
        callback = self.request.get('callback')

        if callback:
          self.response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/javascript'
          self.response.out.write(callback + "(")
          self.response.out.write(headers)
          self.response.out.write(")")
        else:
          self.response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'text/plain'
          self.response.out.write("I need a callback=")

The code is also open-sourced at https://github.com/dansingerman/app-engine-headers.

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