w:lang (Language)

Specifies the language tag for the run text to control spell-checking and grammar-checking.

Parent elements

w:rPr

Description

w:lang specifies the natural language of the run text, controlling which spell-check and grammar-check dictionaries are used. It is defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.3.2.20.

The value uses IETF BCP 47 language tags (e.g. en-US, de-DE, fr-FR). Three separate attributes cover Latin/Western, East Asian, and complex-script (bidirectional) text segments.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`ST_Lang`	BCP 47 language tag, e.g. `en-US`, `de-DE`, `fr-FR`, `ja-JP`.	Language for Latin and Western script characters.
`w:eastAsia`	`ST_Lang`	BCP 47 language tag, e.g. `zh-CN`, `ja-JP`, `ko-KR`.	Language for East Asian script characters.
`w:bidi`	`ST_Lang`	BCP 47 language tag, e.g. `ar-SA`, `he-IL`.	Language for complex-script (bidirectional) characters.

Examples

<w:rPr>
  <w:lang w:val="de-DE"/>
</w:rPr>

new RunProperties(
  new Languages { Val = "de-DE" });

Notes

Omitting w:lang means the application’s default language is used.
Setting w:val="zxx" (no linguistic content) or w:val="x-none" suppresses proofing entirely for the run.