lang

The lang attribute specifies the primary language used in contents and attributes containing text content of particular elements.

There is also an xml:lang attribute (with namespace). If both of them are defined, the one with namespace is used and the one without is ignored.

In SVG 1.1 there was a lang attribute defined with a different meaning and only applying to <glyph> elements. That attribute specified a list of languages according to RFC 5646: Tags for Identifying Languages (also known as BCP 47). The glyph was meant to be used if the xml:lang attribute exactly matched one of the languages given in the value of this parameter, or if the xml:lang attribute exactly equaled a prefix of one of the languages given in the value of this parameter such that the first tag character following the prefix was "-".

You can use this attribute with any SVG element.

Example

<svg viewBox="0 0 200 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <text lang="en-US">This is some English text</text>
</svg>

Usage notes

<language-tag>

This value specifies the language used for the element. The syntax of this value is defined in RFC 5646: Tags for Identifying Languages (also known as BCP 47).

The most common syntax is a value formed by a lowercase two-character part for the language and an uppercase two-character part for the region or country, separated by a minus sign, e.g., en-US for US English or de-AT for Austrian German.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• RFC 5646: Tags for Identifying Languages (also known as BCP 47)