Understanding:Success Criterion 3.1.1: Language of Page

Success Criterion 3.1.1 Language of Page (Level A): The default human language of each Web page can be programmatically determined.

Intent

The intent of this Success Criterion is to ensure that content developers provide information in the Web page that user agents need to present text and other linguistic content correctly. Both assistive technologies and conventional user agents can render text more accurately when the language of the Web page is identified. Screen readers can load the correct pronunciation rules. Visual browsers can display characters and scripts correctly. Media players can show captions correctly. As a result, users with disabilities will be better able to understand the content.

The default human language of the Web page is the default text-processing language as discussed in Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML & HTML Content. When a Web page 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 human language.)

Note

For multilingual sites targeting Conformance Level A, the Working Group strongly encourages developers to follow Success Criterion 3.1.2 as well even though that is a Level AA Success Criterion.

Benefits

This Success Criterion helps:

  • people who use screen readers or other technologies that convert text into synthetic speech;
  • people who find it difficult to read written material with fluency and accuracy, such as recognizing characters and alphabets or decoding words;
  • people with certain cognitive, language and learning disabilities who use text-to-speech software
  • people who rely on captions for synchronized media.

Examples

  • Example 1. A Web page with content in two languages

    A Web page produced in Germany and written in HTML includes content in both German and English, but most of the content is in German. The default human language is identified as German (de) by the lang attribute on the html element.

Related Resources

Resources are for information purposes only, no endorsement implied.

Techniques

Each numbered item in this section represents a technique or combination of techniques that the WCAG Working Group deems sufficient for meeting this Success Criterion. However, it is not necessary to use these particular techniques. For information on using other techniques, see Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria, particularly the "Other Techniques" section.

Sufficient Techniques

  1. H57: Using the language attribute on the HTML element
  2. PDF16: Setting the default language using the /Lang entry in the document catalog of a PDF document
  3. PDF19: Specifying the language for a passage or phrase with the Lang entry in PDF documents

Advisory Techniques

Although not required for conformance, the following additional techniques should be considered in order to make content more accessible. Not all techniques can be used or would be effective in all situations.

Test Rules

The following are Test Rules for certain aspects of this Success Criterion. It is not necessary to use these particular Test Rules to check for conformance with WCAG, but they are defined and approved test methods. For information on using Test Rules, see Understanding Test Rules for WCAG Success Criteria.

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