WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: ISO Language codes and AT

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Nov 24, 2014 2:16PM

2014-11-24 22:31, John Foliot wrote:

> this page may give you a hint:
> http://support.apple.com/tr-tr/HT3562 - again a peak at the source code
> suggests that ISO 639-2 *may* be the answer:

I don't see how the source code relates to ISO 639-2, which is about
three-letter (primary) codes for languages (alpha-3). The language codes
are two-letter codes as defined in ISO 639-1 (alpha-2), partly followed
by a two-letter country code. Country codes, and the way to combine them
with primary language codes, are defined in other standards and
specifications.

> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-kw"
> href="http://support.apple.com/en-kw/HT3562">

As an aside, "en-kw" is somewhat strange. I don't remember having heard
any particular features in English as spoken in Kuwait. The code "en-kw"
appears to be an attempt at combining language information with country
information, rather than identifying a particular form of language.
Though formally valid, this appears to be a category error in practice.
Besides, the page itself declares lang="en", i.e. English in general. By
the protocols, hreflang attributes are advisory, and the language
information provided by the resource itself should have priority.

Yucca