All attributes support only one language, so I believe you should define only one language; the most important language should be set. This can’t be done if you have multiple languages on a single document, so here is the info to solve your problem:
The lang and xml:lang attributes do not allow you to assign multiple languages to a single document. So if you’re writing a Web page with multiple languages you have two options:
- Define a primary language with the
lang
attribute, and then call out the secondary language(s) withlang
attributes on elements in the document -
Define
lang
in the specific sections of the document as needed:<div lang="fr-CA" xml:lang="fr-CA"> Canadian French content... </div> <div lang="en-CA" xml:lang="en-CA"> Canadian English content... </div> <div lang="nl-NL" xml:lang="nl-NL"> Netherlands, Dutch content... </div>
I have some multiple-language pages and I do use the 2nd option.
You might want to read http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/NOTE-i18n-html-tech-lang-20070412/#ri20060630.133619987