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Comment LC-1376: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org> on behalf of I18N WG; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

or; Refinement of the section concerned:; Status:
assigned to; Type:; Resolution status:
Response drafted Resolution implemented Reply sent to commenter; Response status:
No response from Commenter yet Commenter approved disposition Commenter objected to disposition
Commenter's response (URI):; Comment:
Comment from the i18n review of:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20060427/

Comment 4
At http://www.w3.org/International/reviews/0606-understanding-wcag2/
Editorial/substantive: S
Owner: RI

Location in reviewed document:
3.1.1 Example 1

Comment:
"A Web unit produced in Germany includes content in both German and English, but most of the content is in German. The primary natural language is identified as German (de)."

If the primary language is expressed using HTTP or meta tags, it is possible that both languages should be identified if this is a document aimed at a bilingual audience. If the primary language is to be expressed in the html element tag, only one language can be chosen. This example is too vague. This goes back to the question of what WCAG means by 'primary language'.; Related issues: 1371
(space separated ids); WG Notes: [TEAMB] I think we should require a default natural language. Here in Canada, we run into this all the time with two official languages. There are very few web units that are truly bilingual. Usually there is a link that says "FranÃ§ais" or "English" that takes the user to the same content in a new language. Currently the HTML element tag is better supported. The trade off of removing the Language tag is higher than the benefits of removing it for reasons that may be more policital than practical Aug 1 Team B meeting: we agree with sentiment; Loretta to work on wording of response LGR, 07 Aug: Since we added "default" to the SC, it seems there should only be one default natural language. We should remove "or languages" so that our intention is clearer, but keep advisory techniques to identify all the languages used in a document. Discussed in the 10 August 2006 telecon: resolution: send 1376 to teamB to remove "and languages" but add things to "How to meet..." that deals with multi-lingual docs http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2006/08/10-wai-wcag-minutes.htm Discussed in the 24 August 2006 telecon: Resolution: Accept 1376 as amended. http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2006/08/24-wai-wcag-minutes.htm {accept} DONE Remove "or languages" from SC 3.1.1 DONE Add to Resources for SC 3.1.1 and 3.1.2: http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content DONE Add paragraph to Intent section: The default natural language of the Web unit is the default text-processing language [as discussed in Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content]. When a Web unit uses several languages, the default text processing language is the language which is used most. (If several languages are used equally, the first language used should be chosen as the default natural language.) Note: For multilingual sites targeting Conformance Level A, the WG strongly encourages developers to follow SC 3.1.2 as well even though that is a level 2 Success Criterion. Internal WD updated 25 August.; Resolution: We have clarified our use of primary language to be the default human language of the Web page, and we changed SC 3.1.1 to read "The default human language of each Web page within the content can be programmatically determined." We included a reference to Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content, and added a discussion of multilingual documents to the Intent section. We added "default" to the example to make it clearer why this satisfies the SC. Currently assistive technologies do not support specifying languages in HTTP headers or meta tags, so those techniques are not considered sufficient at this time. HTTP headers and meta tag marking of languages can identify multiple languages, as you point out. Specifying multiple languages in the http header or in meta-data would not specify a default text processing language, so such usage would not satisfy this success criterion. This would be discussed when those techniques are written.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)