# Trouble searching for non-english unicode terms

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/trouble-searching-for-non-english-unicode-terms/3060>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [July 1, 2010, 10:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/trouble-searching-for-non-english-unicode-terms/3060 "2010-07-01T10:32:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alexander\_Karelas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alexander_karelas/32/3334_2.png) [@Alexander\_Karelas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alexander_Karelas)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 10:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/trouble-searching-for-non-english-unicode-terms/3060/1 "2010-07-01T10:32:10Z")

</div>

I have a bunch of texts in unicode greek (with a few words in english in  
them).

I've indexed them plainly, with the following mapping:

```
 properties => {
     subject => { type => 'string', store => 'yes' },
     rss_body => { type => 'string' },
     date => { type => 'date' },
     url => { type => 'string' },
     author => { type => 'string', index => 'not_analyzed' }
 }

```

...but when I try to search for a greek word in the subject as follows: ...

```
     query => { term => { subject => $terms } }

```

...I get 0 results. Searching for an english word that exists, returns  
results normally.

I tried adding: analyzer =\> "icu\_normalizer" to the mapping of the  
"subject" field, but nothing different happened.

My question: Is this normal behaviour for an unconfigured installation  
of elasticsearch? What can I do to solve this problem?

Thank you,

A.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Clinton\_Gormley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/trouble-searching-for-non-english-unicode-terms/3060/2 "2010-07-01T10:42:15Z")

</div>

Hiya

Unicode greek does work - see this URL for an example:

[http://dev.iannounce.net/search?keywords=ελληνική+γλώσσα&date\_limit=&date=&type=all\_notices&\_fstatus=search](http://dev.iannounce.net/search?keywords=%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE+%CE%B3%CE%BB%CF%8E%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B1&date_limit=&date=&type=all_notices&_fstatus=search)

> ...but when I try to search for a greek word in the subject as follows: ...
> 
> ```
> query => { term => { subject => $terms } }
> 
> ```

You don't want a terms search here, you want a query\_string or field:

Try: query =\> { field =\> { subject =\> $terms }}

clint

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---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/trouble-searching-for-non-english-unicode-terms/3060/3 "2017-07-06T04:22:48Z")

</div>