🌐 Tell Browsers and Search Engines Your Page Language
Screen readers need to know language. Search engines need to know language. lang attribute declares page language. Essential for accessibility.
📝 Basic Usage
<!-- English --> <html lang="en"> <!-- English (US) --> <html lang="en-US"> <!-- English (UK) --> <html lang="en-GB"> <!-- Turkish --> <html lang="tr"> <!-- German --> <html lang="de"> <!-- French --> <html lang="fr"> <!-- Spanish --> <html lang="es"> <!-- Japanese --> <html lang="ja">
🎯 Mixed Languages
<html lang="en">
<body>
<p>This is English.</p>
<p lang="fr">Ceci est français.</p>
<p lang="es">Esto es español.</p>
</body>
</html>
<!-- Specifying language direction -->
<html lang="ar" dir="rtl">
💡 Why It Matters
- Screen readers pronounce correctly
- Search engines understand content language
- Browser translation works correctly
- Spell check uses correct dictionary
- Required for WCAG accessibility compliance
“Screen reader pronounced English words with French accent. Added lang=’en’. Fixed. Always declare language for accessibility.”