I am checking whether my string contains at least one character of a European language(Example: German, Spanish,English etc...)

I tried like the following:

var check = "abc";

if(check.match(/^[a-zA-ZäöåÄÖÅ]+$/)){
               alert("if");
               }
   else{
   alert("else");
   }

It should only work if it is having at least a European language character. Should not work if numbers only. Please guide me guys!!

I am checking whether my string contains at least one character of a European language(Example: German, Spanish,English etc...)

I tried like the following:

var check = "abc";

if(check.match(/^[a-zA-ZäöåÄÖÅ]+$/)){
               alert("if");
               }
   else{
   alert("else");
   }

It should only work if it is having at least a European language character. Should not work if numbers only. Please guide me guys!!

• javascript
• regex

• The /^ part means that only the first characters of the string will be matched. Also, if you only want to find out if there is one EU character then you do not need the +. Something like check.test(/[a-zA-ZäöåÄÖÅ]/) would do the job. – Sverri M. Olsen Commented Jun 12, 2015 at 9:37

2 Answers 2

You just need to remove the anchors and the quantifier and use test:

alert(/(?![×÷])[A-Za-zÀ-ÿ]/.test("ß1111"))
alert(/(?![×÷])[A-Za-zÀ-ÿ]/.test("ö"))
alert(/(?![×÷])[A-Za-zÀ-ÿ]/.test("12345"))

The (?![×÷])[A-Za-zÀ-ÿ] regex is an adaptation of the regex provided in Useful ASCII Ranges. It will capture all Latin and accented characters.

Some more language-related character ranges you can use:

French Letters: [a-zA-ZàâäôéèëêïîçùûüÿæœÀÂÄÔÉÈËÊÏΟÇÙÛÜÆŒ]

German Letters: [a-zA-ZäöüßÄÖÜ]

Polish Letters only: [a-pr-uwy-zA-PR-UWY-ZąćęłńóśźżĄĆĘŁŃÓŚŹŻ] (Note that there is no Q, V and X in Polish, but if you want to allow all English letters as well, use [a-zA-ZąćęłńóśźżĄĆĘŁŃÓŚŹŻ])

Italian Letters: [a-zA-ZàèéìíîòóùúÀÈÉÌÍÎÒÓÙÚ]

Spanish Letters: [a-zA-ZáéíñóúüÁÉÍÑÓÚÜ]

And some more...

Swedish: [a-zA-ZäöåÄÖÅ] (link)

Norwegian: [a-zA-ZæøåÆØÅ] (link)

Danish (same as Norwegian): [a-zA-ZæøåÆØÅ] (link)

Greek & Coptic + Greek Extended: [\u0370-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF] (link)

Russian: [а-яА-ЯёЁ] (link)

Ukrainian: [а-щА-ЩЬьЮюЯяЇїІіЄєҐґ] (link)

Serbian (Cyrillic): [А-ИК-ШЂЈ-ЋЏа-ик-шђј-ћџ] (link)

Bulgarian (subset of Russian alphabet): [а-ъьюяА-ЪЬЮЯ] (link)

Belarusian script range: [ёа-зй-шы-яЁА-ЗЙ-ШЫІіЎў] (link)

Romanian: [a-zA-ZĂÂÎȘȚăâîșț] (link)

Just in case you're tolerant to weird characters and want to make sure you don't miss any very rare European-looking characters, here's a pact and wide/loose regular expression for you:

[a-zA-ZÀ-ʸᴀ-ᶿḀ-ỿⅠ-ⅿⱠ-ⱿꜢ-ꟊꬰ-ꭥＡ-Ｚａ-ｚЀ-ӿͰ-Ͽἀ-῾\u0300-\u036f]

or

[a-zA-Z\u00c0-\u02b8\u1d00-\u1dbf\u1e00-\u1eff\u2160-\u217f\u2c60-\u2c7f\ua722-\ua7ca\uab30-\uab65\uff21-\uff3a\uff41-\uff5a\u0400-\u04ff\u0370-\u03ff\u1f00-\u1ffe\u0300-\u036f]

This includes Latin script, Cyrillic, Greek, Greek extended and Combining Diacritical Marks

Tested against List of latin script alphabets

ÆⱭꞴÐƎƏƐƔIƖŊŒƆꞶƱKẞƩÞƲǷȜƷʔ æɑꞵðǝəɛɣıɩŋœɔꞷʊĸßʃþʋƿȝʒʔ ĄA̧Ą̊ƁƇÇĐƊƉĘȨƏ̧Ɛ̧ƑǤƓĦꞪĮI̧ƗƗ̧ƘŁM̧ƝǪO̧ØƠƆ̧ƤɌŞƬŢŦŲU̧ƯɄY̨Ƴ ąa̧ą̊ɓƈçđɗɖęȩə̧ɛ̧ƒǥɠħɦįi̧ɨɨ̧ƙłm̧ɲǫo̧øơɔ̧ƥɍşƭţŧųu̧ưʉy̨ƴ ÁÀȦÂÄǞǍĂĀÃÅǺǼǢḄĆĊĈČĎḌḐḒÉÈĖÊËĚĔĒẼE̊ẸǴĠĜǦĞG̃ĢĤḤ áàȧâäǟǎăāãåǻǽǣḅćċĉčďḍḑḓéèėêëěĕēẽe̊ẹǵġĝǧğg̃ģĥḥ ÍÌİÎÏǏĬĪĨỊĴĶǨĹĻĽĿḶḼM̂M̄NŃN̂ṄN̈ŇN̄ÑŅṊÓÒȮȰÔÖȪǑŎŌÕȬŐỌǾƠ íìiîïǐĭīĩịĵķǩĺļľŀḷḽm̂m̄ʼnńn̂ṅn̈ňn̄ñņṋóòȯȱôöȫǒŏōõȭőọǿơ P̄ŔŘŖṚŚŜṠŠȘṢŤȚṬṰÚÙÛÜǓŬŪŨŰŮỤẂẀŴẄẊÝỲŶŸȲỸŹŻŽẒǮ p̄ŕřŗṛśŝṡšșṣťțṭṱúùûüǔŭūũűůụẃẁŵẅẋýỳŷÿȳỹźżžẓǯ

I use it to check usernames on an academic forum to make sure people can write their native names as long as they are at least somewhat internationally readable.