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Re: Greek letter characters

for

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Aug 22, 2007 3:10PM

Keith Parks wrote:
> Hi folks.
>
> I'm trying to verify 508 compliance on some pages listing our
> fraternities and sororities. The page shows the Greek letters for
> each organization, which I have marked up using the character entity
> codes (proper terminology?). For instance...
>
> ΑΕΠ for Alpha Epsilon Pi, etc.

While I'm not sure if any screen reading technology actually support this at
this stage, I would consider wrapping those characters in a span, and apply
the lang attribute:

<span lang="grc">&#x0391; &#x0395; &#x03A0;</span>

Where grc = iso639-2 language code for "Greek, Ancient" [source:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php]

While it might not "read" properly (due to poor screen reader
implementation), you've gone "above and beyond". Thinking this though even
further, you might also apply the title attribute to the span:

<span lang="grc" title="Alpha Epsilon Pi">&#x0391; &#x0395; &#x03A0;</span>

Hmmm... Ya, that's what I would probably do... (and while I always caution
users about using the title attribute/tooltip "feature", in this instance it
also serves double duty for cognitive impairment issues, as not everyone
would know what those greek letter are or how they are "read")

HTH

JF