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The purpose of this template is to indicate that a span of text belongs to a particular language. It often makes no visible changes to the text, but can prompt web browsers to use a more appropriate font, or screen readers to use a particular kind of pronunciation, and so on. The {{section link||Rationale}}, below, provides more information.

== Syntax and usage ==

: {{tlx|lang|{{var|language tag}}|{{var|text}}}}

The {{var|language tag}} should consist of an [[List of ISO 639 codes|ISO 639]] language code, optionally extended to indicate a language's script or region. The language code is usually a two- or three-letter abbreviation, in lowercase, of the language's name. [[French language|French]], for example, has the code <code>fr</code>:

* <code><nowiki>She said: "''{{lang|fr|Je suis française.}}''"</nowiki></code>
: She said: "''{{lang|fr|Je suis française.}}''"

Because all languages represented by two-letter codes in [[ISO 639‑1]] can also be represented by their newer three-letter equivalents in [[ISO 639‑2]] and above, it is recommended to use the shortest language tag possible that sufficiently describes the target language.<ref>[https://www.w3.org/International/articles/language-tags/index.en "Language tags in HTML and XML"] at [[World Wide Web Consortium]]</ref> So while French could be represented by 639‑2's <code>fra</code> code, 639‑1's <code>fr</code> should still take precedence. Likewise, script and region information should only be included when they provide a necessary distinction.

By default, this template will place articles into the relevant subcategory of {{cl|Articles containing non-English-language text}}. To suppress this – e.g. when using {{tlf|lang}} within a [[Help:Link#Wikilinks|wikilink]] or the ''title'' parameter of a citation – add the parameter {{para|nocat|true}}.

=== Formatting ===

There are language-specific versions of this template, such as {{tl|lang-fr}} and {{tl|lang-ru}}, which are intended to be used the first time a language appears in an article. These templates will print the language's name and, when appropriate, italicize their content:

* <code><nowiki>A '''kremlin''' ({{lang-ru|кремль}}, ''castle'') is a major fortified central complex...</nowiki></code>
: A '''kremlin''' ({{lang-ru|кремль}}, ''castle'') is a major fortified central complex...

While {{tlf|lang-xx}} templates output text in italics for languages with Latin-based scripts, if plain text is required, such as for proper names, {{tl|noitalic}} may be used:

* <code>... the border town of Ventimiglia (<nowiki>{{lang-fr|{{noitalic|Vintimille}}}}</nowiki>)</code>
: ... the border town of Ventimiglia ({{lang-fr|{{noitalic|Vintimille}}}})

When formatting foreign-language text to match style guidelines, it is best to exclude the styling markup from the template, so that any extraneous markup which is not from the foreign language does not receive incorrect metadata for that language:

* Use <code>{{mxt|1=<nowiki>''{{lang|it|[[goriziana]]}}''</nowiki>}}</code>
* Not <code>{{!mxt|1=<nowiki>{{lang|it|''[[goriziana]]''}}</nowiki>}}</code>

This includes italicization of foreign words; English-language quotation marks around titles of works in languages that use other quotation character glyphs; italicization of titles in languages which do not use that convention; and emphasis that is not found (in one style or another) in the original foreign text; among other cases. If in doubt, put such markup outside the template.

=== Right-to-left languages ===

To embed a string of right-to-left text (from languages like [[Arabic language|Arabic]] or [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]) within the usual left-to-right context, you should add the {{para|rtl|yes}} parameter, so the writing direction can be correctly communicated to browsers. ''Alternatively'', you can use the {{tl|rtl-lang}} template to accomplish the same result, or {{tl|rtl-para}} for marking up whole paragraphs of right-to-left text.

Either of these approaches will wrap the text in a container with the <code>dir="rtl"</code> attribute. In order to ensure correct rendering in browsers that do not fully support [[HTML 5]] [[bi-directional text|bidirectional isolation]], they may also add a [[left-to-right mark]] at the end of the text (see the [http://www.w3.org/International/articles/inline-bidi-markup W3C] for details).

Note that text direction does not need to be specified when using the {{tl|lang-xx}} templates, as this is implied by the template's language. Therefore there is no {{tl|rtl-lang-ar}}, only {{tl|lang-ar}}.

== Indicating writing script ==

If necessary, an [[List of ISO 15924 codes|ISO 15924]] script code can be appended to a language code to indicate the use of a specific script. For instance, [[Tajik language|Tajik]] (<code>tg</code>) is a language which can be found written in [[Arabic script|Arabic]] (<code>Arab</code>), [[Latin script|Latin]] (<code>Latn</code>), and [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] (<code>Cyrl</code>) scripts, making it necessary to always specify which script is in use. In such a case, taking care to preserve the script's capitalization, we could end up with the following code (language tags in bold):

* <code><nowiki>Tajik ({{rtl-lang|</nowiki>'''tg-Arab'''<nowiki>|تاجیکی}}, ''{{lang|</nowiki>'''tg-Latn'''<nowiki>|toçikī}}'', {{lang|</nowiki>'''tg-Cyrl'''<nowiki>|тоҷикӣ}})</nowiki></code>
: Tajik ({{rtl-lang|tg-Arab|تاجیکی}}, ''{{lang|tg-Latn|toçikī}}'', {{lang|tg-Cyrl|тоҷикӣ}})

Many languages, however, are so commonly written in one particular script that specifying the script is unnecessary. [[Russian language|Russian]], for instance, is almost exclusively written in Cyrillic, so there is no need to specify <code>ru-Cyrl</code>, just as <code>en-Latn</code> would be redundant for English. The [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority|IANA]]'s [http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry language subtag registry] contains up-to-date information on which languages have redundant, or "suppressed", script codes.

=== Transliteration ===

To mark a language which has been [[transliteration|transliterated]] from one script into another, append the new script's code to the code of the original language. So if transliterating from Russian Cyrillic to a Latin script, the language tag on the transliteration would be <code>ru-Latn</code>. As a convenience for transliterating to Latin scripts, and to work around browser styling issues with some language and script combinations, {{tl|transl}} should be used in place of {{tlf|lang}}:

* <code><nowiki>Moscow ({{lang|ru|Москва́}}, ''{{transl|ru|Moskva}}'')</nowiki></code>
: Moscow ({{lang|ru|Москва́}}, ''{{transl|ru|Moskva}}'')

To specify a transliteration scheme, such as the [[ISO 9|ISO transliteration standard for Cyrillic]], use {{tlc|transl|ru|ISO|Moskva}}.

=== Undetermined language ===

The {{tlf|lang}} template is not only used to specify the language of foreign words, but can also be used to specify a single symbol or character in a script, unrelated to any specific language. Many times the character or symbol is used in several languages, but when the article refers to the [[grapheme]] itself, the [[ISO 639‑2]] language code <code>und</code>, for Undetermined language, should be used:

* <code><nowiki>The {{lang|und-Hani|字}} Han character has 6 strokes.</nowiki></code>
: The {{lang|und-Hani|字}} Han character has 6 strokes.

Han characters are used in Chinese, Japanese, sometimes Korean, and formerly Vietnamese, and in this case the character is not used for any specific language. Note that the script code used is <code>Hani</code>, which specifies generic Han characters (Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja).

Compare {{tl|script}} usage:

* <code><nowiki>The {{script|Hani|字}} Han character has 6 strokes.</nowiki></code>
: The {{script|Hani|字}} Han character has 6 strokes.

== Indicating regional variant ==

When it is necessary to indicate region-specific language, an [[ISO 3166-1 alpha-2]] country code, or [[UN M.49]] region code, should be added to the language tag, taking care to preserve capitalization. For example, [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] (<code>pt</code>) as used in [[Brazil]] (<code>BR</code>) could be represented as <code>pt-BR</code>, and [[Spanish language|Spanish]] as used in [[Latin America]] as <code>es-419</code>.

Additionally, language, script, and region codes can all appear in the same tag. For instance, the code <code>zh-Hant-TW</code> should be used for [[Chinese language|Chinese]] text written with [[Traditional Chinese characters|Traditional Han characters]], containing words or expressions specific to [[Taiwan]]:

* <code><nowiki>Taiwan ({{lang|zh-Hant-TW|臺灣}}, ''{{transl|zh|Táiwān}}'')</nowiki></code>
: Taiwan ({{lang|zh-Hant-TW|臺灣}}, ''{{transl|zh|Táiwān}}'')

== Rationale ==

* [[WWW|Web]] [[Web browser|browsers]] can use the information in such [[:Category:multilingual support templates|multilingual support templates]] to choose an appropriate font.
** This is great for [[CJK characters|CJK]] where a character can be given its language-specific shape but will fall back to another form if no appropriate font is found or if the preferred font lacks that character, for example because the language does not make use of that character: see {{section link|Han unification|Examples of language dependent characters}} and [[User:Wikipeditor/CJK|these comparison table and screen photo]].
* For [[web accessibility|accessibility]] – [[screen reader]]s need language info to speak text in the correct language – and to satisfy [[Wikipedia:Accessibility#Text|Wikipedia accessibility guidelines]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/yahoo-search-results-now-natural-language-support-7318.html|title=Yahoo! search results now with natural language support|date=13 Mar 2008|first= Chris |last= Heilmann|work=[[Yahoo! Developer Network]] Blog|accessdate=28 Feb 2015|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20090125024422/http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/03/yahoo_search_re.html|archivedate=25 Jan 2009|dead-url=no}}</ref>
* For [[spell checker]]s and grammar checkers.
* To help browsers choose appropriate [[quotation mark]]s,<ref name="qa-lang-why">{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-why|title=Why use the language attribute?|date=18 November 2014|first= Richard |last= Ishida | publisher=World Wide Web Consortium | issue=Previously by Deborah Cawkwell, BBC World Service|accessdate=1 Mar 2015}}</ref> and make decisions about [[Hyphen|hyphenation]],<ref name="qa-lang-why"/> [[Typographic ligature|ligature]]s,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-fonts/#font-variant-ligatures-prop|title=6.4 Ligatures: the font-variant-ligatures property|work=CSS Fonts Module Level 3 W3C Candidate Recommendation 3 October 2013}}</ref> and spacing.<ref name="qa-lang-why"/>
* Users can apply styles to languages in their [[Style sheet (web development)|style sheet]]s (useful for editors).
* [[Web search engine|Search engine]]s can use this information when [[index (search engine)|indexing]] text.
* Facilitates better data-scraping, parsing and re-use.
* Useful for application developers who re-publish Wikipedia (also see {{section link|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility|Other languages}}).
* Useful for research or compiling statistics about language use in Wikipedia.

== Applying styles ==

Registered users can apply custom [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] styles to articles by placing style declarations in their user style sheet. The user style sheet can be created at [[Special:Mypage/common.css]]. For more information, see [[Help:User style]]. The following examples should work in most [[List of web browsers|modern browsers]], but not in [[Internet Explorer 8]] or earlier, which lack support for attribute selectors.

To apply a specific font to all text marked as Russian:

<syntaxhighlight lang="css">
span[lang|=ru] { font-family: fonteskaya; }
</syntaxhighlight>

To apply a color to all text marked with a language:

<syntaxhighlight lang="css">
span[lang] { color: green; }
</syntaxhighlight>

''Do not'' use quotation marks in your user style sheet, they may be misinterpreted as wikitext. While they are recommended in CSS, they are only required for font families containing generic-family keywords ('inherit', 'serif', 'sans-serif', 'monospace', 'fantasy', and 'cursive'). See the [http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/fonts.html#font-family-prop W3C] for more details.

== TemplateData ==

{{TemplateDataHeader}}
<templatedata>
{
	"description": "Indicate that a given span of text belongs to a particular language. Allows browsers to correctly present and pronounce foreign languages.",
	"params": {
		"1": {
			"label": "Language tag",
			"description": "A language tag, or an ISO 639 language code.",
			"type": "string",
			"required": true,
			"example": "fr"
		},
		"2": {
			"label": "Text",
			"description": "The text belonging to the language specified.",
			"type": "string",
			"required": true,
			"example": "Je suis française."
		},
		"rtl": {
			"label": "Right to left",
			"description": "Indicates that the language should be displayed from right to left.",
			"example": "yes",
			"type": "string"
		}
	},
	"format": "inline"
}
</templatedata>

== See also ==
* {{tl|Language}}
* [[:Category:Multilingual support templates]]
* [[List of ISO 639 codes]] (language codes)
** {{tl|ISO 639 name}}
* [[List of ISO 15924 codes]] (script codes)
* [[List of ISO romanizations|List of ISO transliterations]] (transliteration codes)
* {{tl|Cleanup-lang}} (for articles which should use this template, but do not yet)
* {{tl|transl}} (for romanisation of languages not natively written in the Latin alphabet
* {{tl|script}} (for specific characters)
* [[:Category:Language icon templates]] (for visually marking external links to foreign-language content)

== Further information ==
* [[World Wide Web Consortium|W3C]]
** [http://www.w3.org/International/articles/language-tags/Overview.en.php Language tags in HTML and XML] – Overview
** [http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/ Authoring HTML: Language declarations] – Latest W3C Working Draft
** [http://www.w3.org/International/articles/bcp47/ Understanding the New Language Tags]
** [http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-css-lang FAQ: Styling using the lang attribute]
* [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority|IANA]]
** [http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry IANA Language Subtag Registry]
** [http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4646.txt Tags for Identifying Languages] (RFC 4646)
** [http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4647.txt Matching of Language Tags] (RFC 4647)
** [http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-tags Language tags] (obsolete per RFC 4646)
* [[Mozilla Firefox]]
** [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=192636 Bug with script selection]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

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