I usually use this: <html lang=en> . However, I am working on a website

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Asked: May 24, 20262026-05-24T20:43:05+00:00 2026-05-24T20:43:05+00:00

I usually use this: <html lang="en">.

However, I am working on a website that will use two languages and mix them up sometimes in the same sentence or heading.

How would the above code look in this case? Can I use <html lang="lang1 lang2">?

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Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-05-24T20:43:08+00:00

As far as I can tell from reading the HTML5 spec the lang attribute:

value must be a valid BCP 47 language tag, or the empty string

There’s no mention in the spec of an array of language strings and every example I’ve found uses a single language string.

This makes sense since really a given section can only be in one language unless we’re creating a new hybrid language.

Since the lang attribute is valid on all HTML elements you can wrap your language specific code in a new tag in order to indicate its language.

<html lang="en">
[...]
<body>
<h1>I am a heading <span lang="de-DE">Eine Überschrift</span></h1>
</body>
</html>

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