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Re: lang attribute for foreign words found in Merriam Webster's dictionary?

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Apr 21, 2015 3:21PM

Mike, I'll let the grammarians and usage nuts knock themselves out determining when a borrowed phrase becomes part of the language that borrows it.

From the standpoint of accessibility, there are two reasons for tagging a phrase with its human language:
' To help the software know which dictionary to use for spellchecking and, if requested, definitions.
' To determined which pronunciation rules should be used.

Often borrowed phrases lose both. So the best reference for pronunciation will be the same resource used for the rest of the page.

But if the reader should hear the phrase pronounced according to the rules of its own language, then you'll want to wrap the phrase in the tags for that language.

The point is, people who are listening to screen readers should hear the phrase pronounced in a familiar way. If the term is from French and always pronounced as in French, then wrap it in tags that identify it as French.

But, as is usually the case for many procedural terms used by our Texas Legislature, it might have come from Latin but you'd never be able to tell it by the way it's pronounced. To have any chance for the screen reader to produce the familiar sound, you'd have to leave those marked up as English.

Cliff Tyllick

Sent from my iPhone
Although its spellcheck often saves me, all goofs in sent messages are its fault.

> On Apr 21, 2015, at 3:30 PM, Mike Warner < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Hi again,
>
> as I'm going though the WCAG Checklist, I saw this:
>
> Individual words in another language that could be understood incorrectly
> or not at all are marked up using the lang attribute.
>
> What if the foreign words are in common English dictionaries? We don't use
> many, mainly in our art and culture courses, and the words all have
> accessible glossary spans next to them.
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
> > > >