@@LANGID is not supported in Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - 12.0.2000.8 (Azure Synapse) - most accurate way of determining the LANGID?

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@@LANGID is not supported in Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - 12.0.2000.8 (Azure Synapse) - most accurate way of determining the LANGID?

Adrian CB 0

As per the title, according to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/functions/langid-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver17&viewFallbackFrom=azure-sqldw-latest, LANGID is not supported in Azure Synapse.

What's the recommended (most accurate) way of determining the LANGID to fetch the date format?

I could use LANGUAGE, but it seems more error-prone. Is this the recommendation?

2 answers

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Answer 1

J N S S Kasyap 3,300 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Adrian CB
@@LANGID isn’t supported in Azure Synapse, so if you need to determine the language or date format, the most reliable option is:

SELECT SESSIONPROPERTY('LANGUAGE') AS CurrentLanguage;

This gives you the current session language (like us_english), which you can manually map to a LANGID if needed using the standard SQL Server language ID list.

If your goal is to understand the date format, run:

DBCC USEROPTIONS;

Look for the dateformat row it tells you whether the format is mdy, dmy, etc., which is what actually matters for parsing or formatting dates.

CultureInfo isn’t available inside Synapse SQL itself it only applies in external tools like .NET or Power BI. So within Synapse, SESSIONPROPERTY('LANGUAGE') plus DBCC USEROPTIONS is your best bet.

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Kindly consider upvoting the comment if the information provided is helpful. This can assist other community members in resolving similar issues.

Adrian CB 0 Reputation points

2025-06-10T00:12:35.2166667+00:00

Thanks @J N S S Kasyap but neither SESSIONPROPERTY or DBCC USEROPTIONS is supported in Synapse AFAIK:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/functions/sessionproperty-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver16
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/database-console-commands/dbcc-useroptions-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver16

So, my only option is @@LANGUAGE?
J N S S Kasyap 3,300 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-10T12:42:30.5666667+00:00
@Adrian CB
In Azure Synapse SQL, the only built-in and supported way to infer the session's language is:

SELECT @@LANGUAGE AS Language;

This returns the language name (e.g., us_english), not the numeric LANGID. If your goal is to infer date format, then this is your best proxy use the output of @@LANGUAGE and refer to SQL Server’s language/dateformat mapping table to manually infer the expected dateformat (e.g., mdy, dmy, etc.).

I hope this information helps. Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

Answer 2

Adrian CB 0

It seems as if the only way is to rely on @@LANGUAGE.

The answer is SELECT [dateformat] FROM [sys].[syslanguages] WHERE [name] = @@LANGUAGE

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@@LANGID is not supported in Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - 12.0.2000.8 (Azure Synapse) - most accurate way of determining the LANGID?

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