Yes, but .french = a simple CSS selector.
The :lang selector is much more advanced CSS3/CSS4... and older renderers might not be able to handle that.
- - -
It also helps make the code much more human-readable.
Would you know what:
stands for off the top of your head? Nope.
But if you saw:
Code:
class="estonian" lang="et"
now that makes more sense!