lang
The language of an element's content.
Syntax
<html lang="en">Examples
A phrase in another language inside the text:
<p lang="en">The French say <i lang="fr">bon appétit</i> before a meal.</p>The language affects hyphenation and quotes:
<style>
p { width: 120px; hyphens: auto; border: 1px solid #ccc; }
</style>
<p lang="en">Extraordinarily <q>uncharacteristically</q> long words.</p>Notes
Set the page language on <html>, and for passages in another language — on individual elements. The value is a language code: en, ru, de, optionally with a region: en-GB, pt-BR. Without lang, hyphens: auto does not work and screen readers use the wrong pronunciation.
See also
- <html> — The root element of the page: `<head>` and `<body>` live inside it.
- dir — The writing direction: left to right or right to left.
- translate="no" — Tells automatic translators that the text should not be translated.
Related recipes
In the tutorial
- Attributes — How HTML attributes work, the global attributes id, class, title, lang, hidden and style, boolean attributes and data attributes.