franc

Depending on your environment, install the appropriate package. Note that the standard franc package is ESM only and supports 187 languages.

• Node.js (14.14+, 16.0+): Use npm.
• Deno: Use esm.sh.
• Browsers: Use esm.sh with the ?bundle query parameter.

Available packages:

• franc: 187 languages (1M+ speakers).
• franc-min: 82 languages (8M+ speakers).
• franc-all: 414 languages (all possible).
• franc-cli: Command line interface.

npm install franc

Install the franc package using npm. Note that this package is ESM only. It requires Node.js version 14.14+ or 16.0+.

npm install franc

Install franc-all using npm. Note that this package is ESM only. It requires Node.js version 14.14+ or 16.0+.

npm install franc-all

Install the franc-cli command-line interface globally using npm to detect the language of text from your terminal.

npm install franc-cli --global

The franc-cli allows you to detect the language of a string via the command line. You can provide the string as a positional argument or pipe text from stdin (expects UTF-8).

Basic Usage:

# Detect language from a string argument
$ franc "Alle menslike wesens word vry"

# Detect language from stdin
$ echo "এটি একটি ভাষা একক IBM স্ক্রিপ্ট" | franc

The franc package exports franc and francAll. Both functions return ISO 639-3 (three-letter) language codes. If a language cannot be determined, they return 'und'.

• franc(value, [options]): Returns the single most probable language code as a string.
• francAll(value, [options]): Returns an array of language-distance tuples Array<[string, number]> sorted by probability.

Both franc and francAll accept an optional Options object to refine detection:

• only: An array of language codes to allow (e.g., ['por', 'spa']).
• ignore: An array of language codes to exclude.
• minLength: The minimum string length required for detection (defaults to 10).