Is there any reason the [language attribute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_element#The_language_attribute) is not supported?
--[[LucaCapello]]
+
+> Attached a patch against the Git repository, working on Debian ikiwiki_3.20100815.9. --[[LucaCapello]]
+
+[[patch]]
+
+-----
+
+<pre>
+From 680e57fd384b65e289d92054835687f3d6f3a19d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
+From: Luca Capello <luca@pca.it>
+Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2012 14:11:19 +0200
+Subject: [PATCH] IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm: support the language attribute
+
+---
+ IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm | 9 +++++++++
+ doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn | 4 ++++
+ 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+)
+
+diff --git a/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm b/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm
+index 421f1dc..1a49f0c 100644
+--- a/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm
++++ b/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm
+@@ -102,6 +102,10 @@ sub preprocess (@) {
+ $pagestate{$page}{meta}{description}=$value;
+ # fallthrough
+ }
++ elsif ($key eq 'language') {
++ $pagestate{$page}{meta}{language}=$value;
++ # fallthrough
++ }
+ elsif ($key eq 'guid') {
+ $pagestate{$page}{meta}{guid}=$value;
+ # fallthrough
+@@ -279,6 +283,11 @@ sub preprocess (@) {
+ push @{$metaheaders{$page}}, '<meta name="'.$key.
+ '" content="'.encode_entities($value).'" />';
+ }
++ elsif ($key eq 'language') {
++ push @{$metaheaders{$page}},
++ '<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="'.
++ encode_entities($value).'" />';
++ }
+ elsif ($key eq 'name') {
+ push @{$metaheaders{$page}}, scrub('<meta name="'.
+ encode_entities($value).
+diff --git a/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn b/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn
+index 984f685..b82fa58 100644
+--- a/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn
++++ b/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn
+@@ -59,6 +59,10 @@ Supported fields:
+ Specifies a short description for the page. This will be put in
+ the html header, and can also be displayed by eg, the [[map]] directive.
+
++* language
++
++ Specifies the natural language for the page, for example, "en".
++
+ * keywords
+
+ Specifies keywords summarizing the contents of the page. This
+--
+1.7.10.4
+</pre>
+
+----
+
+I guess patching [[/ikiwiki/directive/meta]] to document the fact this attribute is supported would be good. — [[Jon]]
+
+
+----
+
++1 the language attribute works, I see:
+
+ <meta name="language" content="en" />
+
+The problem is that it does not generate the lang attribute in `<html>` and that's what's required for [hyphenation](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/hyphens) so this would be welcome too!
+
+Also, being able to use the language variable in templates would be very useful for various css tweaks. — [Hugo](https://hroy.eu)