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{{HTMLSidebar("Global_attributes")}} 

The lang global attribute helps define the language of an element: the language that non-editable elements are written in, or the language that the editable elements should be written in by the user. The attribute contains a single “language tag” in the format defined in {{RFC(5646, "Tags for Identifying Languages (also known as BCP 47)")}} .

[!NOTE] The default value of lang is the empty string, which means that the language is unknown. Therefore, it is recommended to always specify an appropriate value for this attribute.

{{InteractiveExample("HTML Demo: lang", "tabbed-shorter")}} 

<p>This paragraph is English, but the language is not specifically defined.</p>

<p lang="en-GB">This paragraph is defined as British English.</p>

<p lang="fr">Ce paragraphe est défini en français.</p>

p::before {
  padding-right: 5px;
}

[lang="en-GB"]::before {
  content: "(In British English) ";
}

[lang="fr"]::before {
  content: "(In French) ";
}

If the attribute value is the empty string (lang=""), the language is set to unknown; if the language tag is not valid according to BCP47, it is set to invalid.

Even if the lang attribute is set, it may not be taken into account, as the xml:lang attribute has priority.

For the CSS pseudo-class {{cssxref(":lang")}} , two invalid language names are different if their names are different. So while :lang(es) matches both lang="es-ES" and lang="es-419", :lang(xyzzy) would not match lang="xyzzy-Zorp!".

Language tag syntax

The full BCP47 syntax is in-depth enough to mark extremely specific language dialects, but most usage is much simpler.

A language tag is made of hyphen-separated language subtags, where each subtag indicates a certain property of the language. The 3 most common subtags are:

The script subtag precedes the region subtag if both are present — ru-Cyrl-BY is Russian, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, as spoken in Belarus.

To find the correct subtag codes for a language, try the Language Subtag Lookup.

Accessibility concerns

WCAG Success Criterion 3.1.1 requires that a page language is specified in a way which may be ‘programmatically determined’ (i.e., via the lang attribute).

WCAG Success Criterion 3.1.2 requires that pages with parts in different languages have the languages of those parts specified too. Again, the lang attribute is the correct mechanism for this.

The purpose of these requirements is primarily to allow assistive technologies such as screen readers to invoke the correct pronunciation.

For example, the language menu on this site (MDN) includes a lang attribute for each entry:

<div class="dropdown-container language-menu">
  <button
    id="header-language-menu"
    type="button"
    class="dropdown-menu-label"
    aria-haspopup="true"
    aria-owns="language-menu"
    aria-label="Current language is English. Choose your preferred language.">
    English
    <span class="dropdown-arrow-down" aria-hidden="true">▼</span>
  </button>
  <ul
    id="language-menu"
    class="dropdown-menu-items right show"
    aria-expanded="true"
    role="menu">
    <li lang="ca" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/ca/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang" title="Catalan">
        <bdi>Català</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="de" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/de/docs/Web/HTML/Globale_Attribute/lang" title="German">
        <bdi>Deutsch</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="es" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/es/docs/Web/HTML/Atributos_Globales/lang" title="Spanish">
        <bdi>Español</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="fr" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/fr/docs/Web/HTML/Attributs_universels/lang" title="French">
        <bdi>Français</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="ja" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/ja/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang" title="Japanese">
        <bdi>日本語</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="ko" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/ko/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang" title="Korean">
        <bdi>한국어</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="pt-BR" role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/pt-BR/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Portuguese (Brazilian)">
        <bdi>Português (do&nbsp;Brasil)</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="ru" role="menuitem">
      <a href="/ru/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang" title="Russian">
        <bdi>Русский</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="uk" role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/uk/docs/Web/HTML/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%96_%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8/lang"
        title="Ukrainian">
        <bdi>Українська</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li lang="zh-Hans" role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/zh-CN/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Chinese (Simplified)">
        <bdi>中文 (简体)</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a
        href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang$locales"
        rel="nofollow"
        id="translations-add">
        Add a translation
      </a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div>

Inheritance

If an element has no lang attribute, it will inherit the lang value set on its parent node, which in turn may inherit it from its parent, and so on.

Specifications

{{Specifications}} 

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}} 

See also

In this article

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