Web/HTML/Global attributes/lang

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 Tags for Identifying Languages (BCP47).

The default value of lang is unknown, therefore it is recommended to always specify this attribute with the appropriate value.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

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.

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:

Language subtag: Required. A 2-or-3-character code that defines the basic language, typically written in all lowercase. For example, the language code for English is en, and the code for Badeshi is bdz.
Script subtag: Optional. This subtag defines the writing system used for the language, and is always 4 characters long, with the first letter capitalized. For example, French-in-Braille is fr-Brai and ja-Kana is Japanese written with the Katakana alphabet. If the language is written in a highly typical way, like English in the Latin alphabet, there is no need to use this subtag.
Region subtag: Optional. This subtag defines a dialect of the base language from a particular location, and is either 2 letters in ALLCAPS matching a country code, or 3 numbers matching a non-country area. For example, es-ES is for Spanish as spoken in Spain, and es-013 is Spanish as spoken in Central America. “International Spanish” would just be es.

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.

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

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 Sucesss 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-CN" 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="https://wiki.developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/lang$locales" rel="nofollow" id="translations-add">Add a translation</a>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of 'lang' in that specification.	Living Standard	No change from latest snapshot, HTML 5.1
HTML 5.1The definition of 'lang' in that specification.	Recommendation	Snapshot of HTML Living Standard, no change from HTML5
HTML5The definition of 'lang' in that specification.	Recommendation	Snapshot of HTML Living Standard, behavior with `xml:lang` and language determination algorithm defined. It also is a true global attribute.
HTML 4.01 SpecificationThe definition of 'lang' in that specification.	Recommendation	Supported on all elements but `<applet>`, `<base>`, `<basefont>`, `<br>`, `<frame>`, `<frameset>`, `<iframe>`, `<param>`, and `<script>`.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`lang`	Chrome Full support Yes	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support Yes	IE Full support Yes	Opera Full support Yes	Safari Full support Yes	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support Yes	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support