Template:Which lang

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This template is used to tag non-English text whose language isn't evident.

Why is this tag here?

Non-English words should be tagged with {{lang}} (for languages shown in their native writing system) or {{transliteration}} (for transliterations into the Latin alphabet). This is useful for a variety of reasons.

In this case, an editor (probably a participant in the moss spell check project) attempted to tag this word or phrase, but could not identify the language.

How can I fix it?

If you aren't sure of the language being used, you can:

• Leave the tag as-is.
• Ask on the article's talk page.
• Ask the editor who added that word to the article in the first place.
• Find someone who speaks a language this might be. To help narrow down the possibilities, try:
  • Wikipedia:Language recognition chart
  • Google Translate's "detect language" mode
  • Wiktionary
• Ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language.

If you are certain of the language being used:

1. Find the 2- or 3-letter ISO 639 language code. You can go to the Wikipedia article on the language in question, or see the advice and links to lists at Template:Lang.
2. Tag it:
   • For languages that are being presented in their native writing system (for example, any language that uses the Latin alphabet, like French; or Japanese written in kanji and kana) apply the {{lang}} tag like this:

     This page is being depreciated

     • (The language code for French is "fr".)

     This page is being depreciated

     • (The language code for Japanese is "ja".)

   • For transliterations, see the instructions at {{transliteration}}; generally it works something like this:

     This page is being depreciated

     • The language code for Russian is "ru" and russkij is a transliteration of русский.

   • These tags automatically apply italics, so you can usually remove any existing markup that's trying to do that.
3. Remove the {{which lang}} tag.

Thanks for your help!

Usage

{{Which lang|date=February 2026}}

{{Which lang|date=February 2026|reason=Your explanation here}}

Place the tag, with any optional parameters, immediately after the word or phrase in question. This template should not be substituted ({{subst:}}). For example:

...known as haats,{{which lang|reason=Indian sub-continent dialect?|date=February 2026}} are fairly common throughout the region

looks like this:

...known as haats, are fairly common throughout the region

Parameters

All parameters are optional, and date will be added by a bot if missing.

date=MONTH YEAR

reason=toolip text

Categorization

Adding this template will put articles under Category:Articles with unidentified words.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Which lang in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Which lang

This template is used to tag non-English text whose language isn't evident.

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Month and year	date	Provides the month and year of the clarification request, e.g. 'January 2013', but not 'jan13' Auto value {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}	String	suggested
Explanation	reason	If needed, used to explain why the language of the text is unclear, or offer your best guess at what language it is.	String	optional

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Which lang/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.