RE: Additional thoughts on language specification

Thanks, Yvette and Roberto! One slight modification, though.

Yvette wrote:
<blockquote>
>From the discussion so far, I think we can go ahead and and have two
sufficient techniques: the lang-attribute of the HTML element (if HTML 4
is in the baseline) 
and the xml:lang attribute of the HTML element (if XHTML 1+ is in the
baseline). Within the last technique we could recommend using the
lang-attribute as well for backward compatibility, although that would
not be required for conformance.
</blockquote>

If I understand correctly, XHTML 1.0 content served as text/html
requires *both* the lang attribute *and* the xml:lang attribute. So the
<html> element would look like this:

<html lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">

John

"Good design is accessible design."

Dr. John M. Slatin, Director 
Accessibility Institute
University of Texas at Austin 
FAC 248C 
1 University Station G9600 
Austin, TX 78712 
ph 512-495-4288, fax 512-495-4524 
email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu 
Web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility 



-----Original Message-----
From: public-wcag-teamb-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-wcag-teamb-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Yvette Hoitink
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 9:51 AM
To: public-wcag-teamb@w3.org
Subject: RE: Additional thoughts on language specification



> Roberto Scano:
> Here there are some tests:
> [fix] http://www.w3.org/International/tests/results/lang-decl

Thanks Roberto, this is extremely helpful.

>From the discussion so far, I think we can go ahead and and have two
sufficient techniques: the lang-attribute of the HTML element (if HTML 4
is in the baseline) 
and the xml:lang attribute of the HTML element (if XHTML 1+ is in the
baseline). Within the last technique we could recommend using the
lang-attribute as well for backward compatibility, although that would
not be required for conformance.

In addition to specifying the language using lang or xml:lang, we can
have two further optional techniques to indicate the primary language in
the HTTP headers or in the META tag but these techniques are not
sufficient to conform. Do we have a place for HTTP header techniques? We
might need an orphaned techniques document to put techniques that don't
have a home yet. 

We still have no sufficient techniques to identify the primary language
for HTML 3.2 or lower. I think that highlights a fundamental problem
with the current WCAG spec: it does not allow the use of technologies
that have no features to indicate the primary language. Do we really
want to claim a site can't be even minimally accessible unless you use a
technology that allows you to indicate the primary language? 

I'm not sure yet if I'll have the time to write/spit polish these
techniques today or tomorrow (before my holiday) but I'll do my best. 

Yvette Hoitink
Heritas, Enschede, the Netherlands
E-mail: y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl
WWW: http://www.heritas.nl

Received on Tuesday, 13 September 2005 15:40:50 UTC