WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Html Lang code for page

for

From: Sundby, Valorie
Date: Dec 22, 2015 10:23AM

Follow-up Question: Does location ever influence AT when the lang attribute is not programmatically set? For example, when someone with a handheld device in Mexico loads a page vs. the same page being loaded in the United States?

Thanks,
Valorie

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Joseph Sherman
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2015 10:17 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List' < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Html Lang code for page

Thanks for all the replies, that's what I thought but it's always nice to have ammunition for the inevitable "Why do I have to do this" questions.


Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Adrian Roselli
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2015 12:15 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Html Lang code for page

Joseph,

I tracked a bunch of ways that lang is used on a page [1]:

' VoiceOver on iOS uses the attribute to auto-switche voices.

' VoiceOver can speak a particular language using a different accent when specified.

' Leaving out the lang attribute may require the user to manually switch to the correct language for proper pronunciation.

'JAWS uses it to load the correct phonetic engine / phonologic dictionary — Handy for sites with multiple languages.

' NVDA (Windows) uses it in the same way as VoiceOver and JAWS.

' When used in HTML that is used to form an ePub or Apple iBooks document, it affects how VoiceOver will read the book.

' Firefox, IE10, and Safari (as of a year ago) only support CSS hyphens:
auto when the lang attribute is set.

Frankly, I believe it should be on every page. Since it can be set in a global template, it should be a matter of setting it once and not worrying until you find a rare case where you have to override it (which is good).

1: http://adrianroselli.com/2015/01/on-use-of-lang-attribute.html


On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Joseph Sherman < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> I know 3.1.1 The default human language of each Web page can be
> programmatically determined, but my web folk find this annoying on
> every page and web app, since it is all primary language English, and
> they tend to follow 3.1.2 for language of parts.
>
> So question: Is 3.1.1 really critical in most cases? Is there a good
> reason I can offer for using it on every page? What happens when a
> Spanish screen reader user comes to an English page without a lang
> attribute? Does the software know to read in English?
>
>
> Joseph
>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The information in this email may be confidential and is the
property of 5280 Solutions LLC. Access to this email by
anyone other than the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized.
Forwarding, copying or reproduction of confidential
information without the express permission of 5280 Solutions
LLC is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
communication in error, please contact the sender
immediately (by reply email) and delete the confidential
information from any computer immediately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------