[Techniques] Draft General Technique for GL 3.1 L2 SC3

Guideline 3.1 L2 SC3 requires: 
<current>
For each foreign language 
passage or phrase in the body of the content, the language is identified
through 
markup or other means. Foreign passages or phrases are passages or
phrases 
that are in a language other than the primary language of the document.
[I])
</current>
 
The wording below is proposed as a draft General Technique for this
success criterion.  Once any necessary changes have been made, I hope
this material will be included in the next internal working draft and
that it can move from there into the next public draft.  Please review
and send corrections and suggestions to the list.
 
<proposed>
Short name of this technique: Foreign words, phrases, and passages
Task: Changes in language can be identified by automated software tools.
 
Description
Many documents contain words, phrases, or longer passages that are in a 
different language than the language of the document as a whole. The
language of 
each "foreign" word, phrase, or longer passage must be identified so
that user 
agents, including assistive technology, can present the text
appropriately. 
 
The natural language of a word, phrase, or longer passage may be
identified in the 
following ways:
 
For HTML documents
Use the lang attribute for the element that contains the foreign text.
 Set the value of the lang attribute to the appropriate language code
from the list of 
ISO 639 standard Codes for the Representation of Language Names. The
W3C's 
Internationalization Working Group advises use of two-letter language
codes if 
there is a choice between two- and three-letter codes. 
Include the two-letter country code in the lang attribute when the
foreign text is in 
a language that is used in more than one country (for example,
lang="en-GB" or 
lang="fr-CA" for British English and French Canadian, respectively).
 
For XHTML documents served as text/html
Use both the lang attribute and the xml:lang attribute for the element
that contains 
the foreign text.
Set the value of both the lang and xml"lang attributes to the
appropriate language 
code  from The ISO 639 standard  list of Codes for the Representation of

Language Names. The W3C's Internationalization Working Group advises use
of 
two-letter language codes if there is a choice between two- and
three-letter 
codes.
 
The lang and xml:lang attributes should have the same value. 
 
Include the two-letter country code in the lang and xml:lang attributes
when the 
foreign text is in a language that is used in more than one country.
 
For XHTML 1.1 and other XML-based documents served as text/xml
Use the xml:lang attribute for the element that contains the
foreign-language  text 
(do not use the HTML lang attribute in XML documents.
Set the value of the xml:lang attribute to the appropriate language code
from the 
ISO 639 standard list of Codes for the Representation of Language Names.
The 
W3C's Internationalization Working Group advises use of two-letter
language 
codes if there is a choice between two- and three-letter codes.
 
Resources
HTML Techniques
CSS Techniques
Other resources
 <http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/tutorial-lang/#specifying>
http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/tutorial-lang/#specifying
Specifying 
 
language attribute values
 
 <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt>
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt RFC 3066
 
 <http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langcodes.html>
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langcodes.html ISO 639 Code for
the 
 
Representation of Names of Languages
</proposed>
 
 

"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.ital.utexas.edu/>
http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility