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lang attribute in HTML

lang attribute specifies the language of the HTML document or HTML element.

Why do we need lang attribute?

lang attribute is not presentational i.e. by adding an attribute you don’t see any different in the look and feel of the HTML document or HTML element.

The purpose of adding this attribute is to inform the search engine about the language of the resource.

Syntax

<element lang="language_code">

What is language code?

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) defines the abbreviations for languages (language code). For example

1. en stands for English

2. hi stands for Hindi

Example

<html lang="en">
   <head>
      <title>lang demo</title>
   </head>
   <body></body>
</html>

Using dialect in lang

Dialect means a particular form of language for a specific region. Like english in US is different from Great Britain.

In that case dialect along with the language code is used. For example for US english en-us is used and for Great Britain en-gb is used.

So for US english, preceding code is changed to

<html lang="en-us">
   <head>
      <title>lang demo</title>
   </head>
   <body></body>
</html>

Browser support

Internet Explorer	Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera	Edge
Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Friday, September 23, 2016

Updated On -	Saturday, September 16, 2017

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