User Impact: Major
Disabilities Affected:
WCAG Version:
2
WCAG Levels:
WCAG Guidelines:
Solution Techniques:
Automated Test Accuracy:
High
Check1st Severity:
2
DRRSAG Designations:
Identify the default language of a document by providing the lang and/or xml:lang attribute on the html element. In HTML documents use the lang attribute, while XHTML 1.0 allows both lang and xml:lang attributes, and XHTML 1.1 and above allows only xml:lang.
Engine checks whether the document uses a lang or xml-lang attribute
The objective of this technique is to identify the default language of a document by providing the lang and/or xml:lang attribute on the html element.
Identifying the language of the document is important for a number of reasons:
It allows braille translation software to adapt accordingly.
Speech synthesizers that support multiple languages will be able to speak the text in the appropriate accent with proper pronunciation.
<blockquote xml:lang="en">
<p>text
</p>
</blockquote>