Language section in WCAG HTML Techniques

Dear WCAG, 


At http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS/#language-tech
you say:

"Use the lang attribute to identify the natural language used in a
document."

We believe this should clarify that XHTML requires xml:lang also for
documents served as text/html [1].  (XHTML documents served as XML only
require xml:lang.) Note that according to the XHTML spec, xml:lang takes
precedence for XHTML documents in case of conflict.  There is also other
text and another technique in the section on Language that would need to
be updated in this manner.


We also believe that it would be more intuitive for the new reader to
reverse the order of the two subsections entitled "Identifying the
primary language" and "Identifying changes in language".


Finally, you may wish to add a note that, although the HTML
specification still refers to RFC1766 for definition and explanation of
how to implement language codes, RFC1766 has now been obsoleted by
RFC3066 [2], and authors should use the latter document.  (I18N has
requested that an erratum be added to the specification to this effect,
but it is not clear at this point when errata will be forthcoming.)


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_7

[2] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt


Richard Ishida,
For the I18N WG.

============
Richard Ishida
W3C

contact info: http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/ 

http://www.w3.org/International/ 
http://www.w3.org/International/geo/ 

See the W3C Internationalization FAQ page
http://www.w3.org/International/questions.html

Received on Tuesday, 23 September 2003 13:42:01 UTC