Usage[edit]

This template is intended primarily for:

• Articles with a high quantity of non-English text that has not been marked up with any language templates or codes.
• Articles with unidentified non-English text.

This includes:

• Foreign languages written using the Latin alphabet
• Foreign languages written using non-Latin alphabet scripts
• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions
• Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) text

The addition of language templates on Wikipedia improves Wikipedia's accessibility. In adding language templates, visually-impaired readers who utilise screenreader technology will be able to hear words pronounced in the correct language, instead of them being pronounced phonetically in English.

Place {{Cleanup lang|article|date=May 2024}} on articles where non-English text is used, but has not been marked up.

If a section in an article does not use any language templates, place {{Cleanup lang|section|date=May 2024}} there.

If you know the ISO language code for the non-English text that needs formatting, you can add this to the cleanup template under the parameter |iso=. The ISO code should be present in the infobox of the language's article; for example, Latin is la, and Manx language is gv.

The basic language templates used on Wikipedia are:

• {{lang}} for foreign languages in their native script – this may be Latin alphabet or non-Latin alphabet text
• {{transliteration}} for foreign languages transliterated into the Latin alphabet – i.e., the romanisations of foreign-language words not ordinarily written in the Latin alphabet
• {{IPA}} for IPA transcriptions
• {{PIE}} for Proto-Indo-European language content

Wikipedia also has a number of language-specific multilingual support templates, such as {{nihongo}} and {{lang-zh}}, which feature parameters specific to those languages, such as parameters for different transliteration styles.

This cleanup template automatically adds articles to Category:Pages with non-English text lacking appropriate markup, or a dated subcategory thereof.

When not to use[edit]

• If there is not much foreign-language content that needs marking up within an article; instead of a cleanup tag: if you know the language of the text, just add the appropriate language template to this text with the correct code.
• For the names of people and places: though the |italic= parameter exists in both {{lang}} and {{transliteration}}, and can be set to |italic=no, it is unnecessary to add language templates for the names of people and places.
• For loanwords to English: language templates are intended to improve Wikipedia's accessibility, but common loanwords to English are pronounced just fine by screenreaders. If you are unsure if something is a loanword, searching for it on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary should tell you whether it is a loanword to English or not; if it has an entry, it is likely to be a loanword.