diff --git a/lib/linguist/languages.yml b/lib/linguist/languages.yml
index c51f40d6..f182d18d 100755
--- a/lib/linguist/languages.yml
+++ b/lib/linguist/languages.yml
@@ -3389,6 +3389,7 @@ Python:
   - SConscript
   - SConstruct
   - Snakefile
+  - WORKSPACE
   - wscript
   interpreters:
   - python
diff --git a/samples/Python/filenames/WORKSPACE b/samples/Python/filenames/WORKSPACE
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1ee0ebcd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/samples/Python/filenames/WORKSPACE
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+# rules for scala
+# https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_scala#getting-started
+# pull rule definitions from git
+git_repository(
+    name = "io_bazel_rules_scala",
+    remote = "https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_scala.git",
+    commit = "73743b830ae98d13a946b25ad60cad5fee58e6d3", # update this as needed
+)
+
+# load the desired scala rules for this workspace
+load("@io_bazel_rules_scala//scala:scala.bzl", "scala_repositories")
+scala_repositories()