HTML Language Codes
HTML language codes are used to specify the language of the content in an HTML document. They help improve accessibility, enable proper pronunciation for screen readers, and ensure correct search engine indexing and language-based rendering.
Purpose of Language Codes
The language code in a HTML document is used to:
- Indicate the natural language of the text.
- Assist web browsers and assistive technologies in interpreting the content.
- Help search engines index content based on language.
Structure of Language Codes
- Language codes follow the IETF BCP 47 standard.
- Includes primary language subtags (e.g.,
enfor English,frfor French). - Optionally includes regional subtags (e.g.,
en-USfor American English,fr-CAfor Canadian French).
Syntax of using Language Code in HTML Document
The following is the syntax of using language code in a html document, using the lang attribute of html tag.
index.html
</>
Copy
<html lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p lang="es">Hola, mundo!</p>
<p lang="fr">Bonjour, le monde!</p>
</body>
</html>en-US specifies that the document is in American English.
Commonly Used Language Codes
The following are some of the most commonly used languages across internet, with their respective language code, region, and full code.
| Language | Code | Region | Full Code Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | en | United States | en-US |
| Spanish | es | Spain | es-ES |
| French | fr | Canada | fr-CA |
| Chinese (Simplified) | zh | China | zh-CN |
| Arabic | ar | Egypt | ar-EG |
Benefits of using Language Code
- Enhances SEO by informing search engines about the language of the content.
- Improves the experience for screen readers and text-to-speech systems.
- Assists in proper font rendering for languages requiring specific scripts (e.g., Arabic, Hindi).
Resources
For more details on language codes, refer to the following resources:
Table with Complete List of Languages and their respective ISO Codes
| Language | ISO Code |
|---|---|
| Abkhazian | ab |
| Afar | aa |
| Afrikaans | af |
| Akan | ak |
| Albanian | sq |
| Amharic | am |
| Arabic | ar |
| Aragonese | an |
| Armenian | hy |
| Assamese | as |
| Avaric | av |
| Avestan | ae |
| Aymara | ay |
| Azerbaijani | az |
| Bambara | bm |
| Bashkir | ba |
| Basque | eu |
| Belarusian | be |
| Bengali (Bangla) | bn |
| Bihari | bh |
| Bislama | bi |
| Bosnian | bs |
| Breton | br |
| Bulgarian | bg |
| Burmese | my |
| Catalan | ca |
| Chamorro | ch |
| Chechen | ce |
| Chichewa, Chewa, Nyanja | ny |
| Chinese | zh |
| Chinese (Simplified) | zh-Hans |
| Chinese (Traditional) | zh-Hant |
| Chuvash | cv |
| Cornish | kw |
| Corsican | co |
| Cree | cr |
| Croatian | hr |
| Czech | cs |
| Danish | da |
| Divehi, Dhivehi, Maldivian | dv |
| Dutch | nl |
| Dzongkha | dz |
| English | en |
| Esperanto | eo |
| Estonian | et |
| Ewe | ee |
| Faroese | fo |
| Fijian | fj |
| Finnish | fi |
| French | fr |
| Fula, Fulah, Pulaar, Pular | ff |
| Galician | gl |
| Gaelic (Scottish) | gd |
| Gaelic (Manx) | gv |
| Georgian | ka |
| German | de |
| Greek | el |
| Greenlandic | kl |
| Guarani | gn |
| Gujarati | gu |
| Haitian Creole | ht |
| Hausa | ha |
| Hebrew | he |
| Herero | hz |
| Hindi | hi |
| Hiri Motu | ho |
| Hungarian | hu |
| Icelandic | is |
| Ido | io |
| Igbo | ig |
| Indonesian | id, in |
| Interlingua | ia |
| Interlingue | ie |
| Inuktitut | iu |
| Inupiak | ik |
| Irish | ga |
| Italian | it |
| Japanese | ja |
| Javanese | jv |
| Kalaallisut, Greenlandic | kl |
| Kannada | kn |
| Kanuri | kr |
| Kashmiri | ks |
| Kazakh | kk |
| Khmer | km |
| Kikuyu | ki |
| Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) | rw |
| Kirundi | rn |
| Kyrgyz | ky |
| Komi | kv |
| Kongo | kg |
| Korean | ko |
| Kurdish | ku |
| Kwanyama | kj |
| Lao | lo |
| Latin | la |
| Latvian (Lettish) | lv |
| Limburgish ( Limburger) | li |
| Lingala | ln |
| Lithuanian | lt |
| Luga-Katanga | lu |
| Luganda, Ganda | lg |
| Luxembourgish | lb |
| Manx | gv |
| Macedonian | mk |
| Malagasy | mg |
| Malay | ms |
| Malayalam | ml |
| Maltese | mt |
| Maori | mi |
| Marathi | mr |
| Marshallese | mh |
| Moldavian | mo |
| Mongolian | mn |
| Nauru | na |
| Navajo | nv |
| Ndonga | ng |
| Northern Ndebele | nd |
| Nepali | ne |
| Norwegian | no |
| Norwegian bokmål | nb |
| Norwegian nynorsk | nn |
| Nuosu | ii |
| Occitan | oc |
| Ojibwe | oj |
| Old Church Slavonic, Old Bulgarian | cu |
| Oriya | or |
| Oromo (Afaan Oromo) | om |
| Ossetian | os |
| Pāli | pi |
| Pashto, Pushto | ps |
| Persian (Farsi) | fa |
| Polish | pl |
| Portuguese | pt |
| Punjabi (Eastern) | pa |
| Quechua | qu |
| Romansh | rm |
| Romanian | ro |
| Russian | ru |
| Sami | se |
| Samoan | sm |
| Sango | sg |
| Sanskrit | sa |
| Serbian | sr |
| Serbo-Croatian | sh |
| Sesotho | st |
| Setswana | tn |
| Shona | sn |
| Sichuan Yi | ii |
| Sindhi | sd |
| Sinhalese | si |
| Siswati | ss |
| Slovak | sk |
| Slovenian | sl |
| Somali | so |
| Southern Ndebele | nr |
| Spanish | es |
| Sundanese | su |
| Swahili (Kiswahili) | sw |
| Swati | ss |
| Swedish | sv |
| Tagalog | tl |
| Tahitian | ty |
| Tajik | tg |
| Tamil | ta |
| Tatar | tt |
| Telugu | te |
| Thai | th |
| Tibetan | bo |
| Tigrinya | ti |
| Tonga | to |
| Tsonga | ts |
| Turkish | tr |
| Turkmen | tk |
| Twi | tw |
| Uyghur | ug |
| Ukrainian | uk |
| Urdu | ur |
| Uzbek | uz |
| Venda | ve |
| Vietnamese | vi |
| Volapük | vo |
| Wallon | wa |
| Welsh | cy |
| Wolof | wo |
| Western Frisian | fy |
| Xhosa | xh |
| Yiddish | yi, ji |
| Yoruba | yo |
| Zhuang, Chuang | za |
| Zulu | zu |