I'm not running a multilingual blog but I use WordPress network, on blog per language separately. But my 2 child sites are using 2 different languages. They are using the same theme.
language_attributes(); results the same output <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">.
I can edit wp-config.php or upload 2 themes with different heading declaration in place of language_attributes();
Is there any available plugin to configure this matter without touching wp-config.php. My future child sites may use another third, or fourth language as well.