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Language and punctuation
Different languages
The xml:lang attribute stores the human language of the content, and can be applied to any DITA element.

Introduction
Information types and topics
Topics are the building blocks of modular documents, and organising topics by semantic information types is one of the architectural features of DITA.
DITA map files
Syntax and mark-up
Language and punctuation
- Avoiding writing for output
  Do not include formatting information in your DITA content topics.
- Stem sentences, glue text, and other transitional information
  Transitional information, such as stem sentences, is largely redundant in DITA's minimalist, topic-based, semantic mark-up architecture. The role of transitional information in contextualising the content has been eliminated through the use of smaller chunk sizes, meaningful titles, information typing, structure, and demarcation labels automatically-generated in the output.
- Punctuation in lists
  Ordered and unordered list items should have no terminating punctuation marks, such as commas, semicolons, and full stops, except when all items in a list are complete sentences. This approach maximises re-usability.
- Titles and headings
  Titles are used in a number of mark-up structures in DITA. Titles are a mix of content and metadata. The mark-up in titles should be kept as simple as possible, and workarounds to achieve specific formatting outcomes should not be used.
- Crafting paragraphs
  A paragraph should contain one unit of thought or action, or main point, and should be typically three to eight sentences in length. All of the sentences in a paragraph should relate to its main point.
- Different languages
  The xml:lang attribute stores the human language of the content, and can be applied to any DITA element.
- Quotation marks
  Quotation marks should not be included in DITA content. The marks should be added, if required, during the publishing process.
Graphics and figures
Cross-referencing
Cross-references are a means of binding individual topics into a coherent and navigable document.
Content re-use
Metadata, conditional processing, and indexing
The DITA documentation process
DITA authoring concepts
Moving from style-based authoring to a structured authoring methodology such as DITA requires a radically different approach to writing.

Different languages

The xml:lang attribute stores the human language of the content, and can be applied to any DITA element.

It is not unusual to have content in more than one language in the same deliverable document, or even in the same topic. For example, a topic in German documenting a software application with a user interface in English might need to explain English language error messages.

Every DITA element, including map elements, topic elements, block elements and phrase elements, has an xml:lang attribute which stores the ISO 639 code of the human language in which the content is written.

If one topic has a mix of varieties or dialects of the same language, such as some US English and some UK English, the varieties can be managed through the xml:lang attribute.

For example, if the bulk of a concept topic's content was in US English, but one phrase was in UK English, the concept element's xml:lang attribute should be set to en-US, and the phrase marked up with ph or text with the xml:lang attribute set to en-UK.

If you need to deliver entire documents in different varieties or dialects of the same language, where there are significant spelling, punctuation and grammatical differences, you should treat the varieties as separate languages and manage the task as a localisation project.