lang

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

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 BCP 47 language tag.

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.

Try it

<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 :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!".

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:

html
<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 role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/ca/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Catalan">
        <bdi lang="ca">Català</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/de/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="German">
        <bdi lang="de">Deutsch</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/es/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Spanish">
        <bdi lang="es">Español</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/fr/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="French">
        <bdi lang="fr">Français</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/ja/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Japanese">
        <bdi lang="ja">日本語</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/ko/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Korean">
        <bdi lang="ko">한국어</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/pt-BR/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Portuguese (Brazilian)">
        <bdi lang="pt-BR">Português (do&nbsp;Brasil)</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/ru/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Russian">
        <bdi lang="ru">Русский</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/uk/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Ukrainian">
        <bdi lang="uk">Українська</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li role="menuitem">
      <a
        href="/zh-CN/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        title="Chinese (Simplified)">
        <bdi lang="zh-Hans">中文 (简体)</bdi>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a
        href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Global_attributes/lang"
        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

Specification
HTML
# attr-lang

Browser compatibility

See also