ABBR/ACRONYM and the lang attribute

Hi,

I have a problem in understanding the meaning of lang attribute for the 
HTML ABBR and ACRONYM elements.

Let's say I have an <acronym title="HyperText Markup 
Language">HTML</acronym> element. How do I specify the language of the 
title attribute and the element content separately, so that a speech 
browser will pronounce for example "HTML" the way Finnish alphabet is 
pronounced but the title in English?

As far as I know, there is no single answer to this. I did some search work 
with Google and found some rather heated discussion on this list, dated 
back in Feb 2000. This 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2000JanMar/0505.html> would 
seem to be the article that started the whole thing.

Back then, it was suggested that markup like <acronym title="HyperText 
Markup Language" lang="en"><span lang="fi">HTML</span></acronym> could be 
used. However, it was stated that no UA supported any approach to the 
problem, so the thread wandered on to other subjects. I tried to find more 
recent reports on the UA developments relating to this issue, but found none.

What is the current level of support on this feature? How do the voice 
browsers in general react to lang changes in the middle of the document 
these days? Would the markup I mentioned above have a chance of working 
properly with the current base of voice browsers? Have any suggestions on 
how to enhance it?


Best regards,

Jouni

Received on Friday, 19 October 2001 16:46:38 UTC