The HTMLElement.lang
property gets or sets the base language of an element's attribute values and text content.
The language code returned by this property is defined in the Tags for Identifying Languages (BCP47) IETF document. Common examples include "en" for English, "ja" for Japanese, "es" for Spanish and so on. The default value of this attribute is unknown
. Note that this attribute, though valid at the individual element level described here, is most often specified for the root element of the document.
This also only works with the lang
attribute and not with xml:lang
.
Syntax
var languageUsed = elementNodeReference.lang; // Get the value of lang elementNodeReference.lang = NewLanguage; // Set new value for lang
languageUsed is a string variable that gets the language in which the text of the current element is written. NewLanguage is a string variable with its value setting the language in which the text of the current element is written.
Example
// this snippet compares the base language and // redirects to another url based on language if (document.documentElement.lang === "en") { window.location.href = "Some_document.html.en"; } else if (document.documentElement.lang === "ru") { window.location.href = "Some_document.html.ru"; }
Specification
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML Specification The definition of 'lang' in that specification. |
Obsolete |
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
lang | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 1 | IE ? | Opera Full support Yes | Safari Full support 6 | WebView Android Full support 4.4 | Chrome Android Full support 18 | Firefox Android Full support 4 | Opera Android Full support Yes | Safari iOS Full support Yes | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support
- Compatibility unknown
- Compatibility unknown