A system and method for providing a programming-language-independent interface for querying file system content. In one embodiment, the system may include a storage device configured to store a plurality of files and a file system configured to manage access to the storage device and to store file system content. The file system may include a programming-language-independent interface whereby an application queries the file system content. In various specific implementations of the system, file system content may include file data stored in one or more of the plurality of files, or metadata stored in a named stream corresponding to a given file, respectively. In another specific implementation of the system, the application querying file system content may include the application generating a query in a query language, the application submitting the query to a query engine via the programming-language-independent interface, and the query engine evaluating said query.