Language navigation Nunjucks macro options

Use options to customise the appearance, content and behaviour of this component when using a macro, for example, changing the text.

Also see the guidance on the Language navigation component page, which shows these options in use within each example.

Some options are required for the macro to work; these are marked as "Required" in the option description. Deprecated options are marked as "Deprecated".

If you're using Nunjucks macros in production with "html" options, or ones ending with "html", you must sanitise the HTML to protect against cross-site scripting exploits.

Name	Type	Description
items	array	Required. The languages to display within the language navigation. See macro options for items.
ariaLabel	string	Plain text label identifying the navigation landmark to screen readers. Write it in the language of the current page. Defaults to “Language”.
classes	string	Classes to add to the language navigation container.
attributes	object	HTML attributes to add to the language navigation container.

Options for items array objects

Name	Type	Description
text	string	Required. If html is set, this is not required. Name of the language, written in that language (for example, “Cymraeg” for Welsh). If html is provided, the text option will be ignored.
html	string	Required. If text is set, this is not required. HTML to use for the language item. If html is provided, the text option will be ignored.
lang	string	Required. The language tag for the language item text (for example, cy for Welsh). Added as a lang attribute so that assistive technologies pronounce the language name correctly.
hrefLang	string	The language tag for the linked page (for example, cy for Welsh). Added as an hreflang attribute for search engines and other machine readers. Defaults to lang when omitted.
dir	string	The text direction of the script the language name is written in (ltr for left-to-right scripts or rtl for right-to-left). Set this on every item if the navigation includes scripts written in different directions.
href	string	Link to the current page in this language.
current	boolean	Whether this is the language of the current page. Defaults to true when href is not provided.
languageDescriptionText	string	Visually hidden text after a language link to indicate what the link will do. Write it in the language of the link (for example, “Change the language to English”).
classes	string	Classes to add to the language item anchor.
attributes	object	HTML attributes to add to the language item anchor.