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Re: [EXT] can you make a native <select>/<option> honor the LANG attribute?

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Dec 17, 2020 3:04PM

Ooh! I'm looking forward to that blog post!
Honestly, as a screen reader user (as opposed to an expert) I prefer
to hear the page with the same synth and turn of language detection on
demand. Heck, I'm even more comfortable reading Icelandic with an
English TTS engine by now, which is odd seeing as I actually helped
create the Icelandic TTS engine.

I find it really difficult to navigate multi-lingual pages where the
screen reader is constantly switching between TTS engines. With
English I have at least a vauge idea of what the words are. I'd be
curious to hear what other screen readerusers prefer.


On 12/17/20, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I can confirm the same behavior on VoiceOver with Chrome and Safari, and
> VoiceOver mobile. VoiceOver does not change language when exploring the
> options, even if the proper <option lang> value is defined. It reads them
> all in English.
>
> Interestingly, VoiceOver mobile does (sometimes) properly read non-Latin
> words in their proper language, but this is because it's guessing based on
> the script of the characters, not because the lang attribute is being
> considered.
>
> We just today wrapped up some fairly extensive screen reader testing of lang
> attribute support and found this inconsistency to be fairly standard.
> Several screen readers do not support inline language changes ("language of
> parts") for inline elements (<span>, etc.), but does for block-level
> elements (<p>, <div>, etc.). It seems <option> aligns with the former. A
> list of links, or perhaps a custom menu (such as on UPS) is probably a
> better alternative until these deficiencies are addressed.
>
> WebAIM will very soon be publishing a new article with guidance on using
> lang. I'll share our test cases and testing results at that time.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jared
>
>
> > > > >


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