Question around WCAG 1.0

I am having some issues around meeting WCAG 1.0 level A status and was hoping someone could clarify a few things for me.

I'm working on a Content Management System that maintains several versions of a site in different languages. We are currently tagging whole pages with a primary language. I am running into problems because when an article is created in the system several translations need to be created to mirror the content, and until these translations are complete the English article will be presented despite the chosen language channel of the site.

For example, I am looking at the home page, I've chosen to view the site in Spanish and I go to the news section. Once in the news section I choose to view an article that hasn't been translated into Spanish yet, thus see an English article in a Spanish page. Does this English article need to be tagged with the "lang" attribute to specify it as English?

And, a similar yet difficult issue for me...

In allowing editors to enter content through the CMS they can enter words that don't conform to the base language (such as "monsieur" or "bleu" in an English page). Is guideline 4 in the WCAG 1.0 meant to deal with these types of situations? Does the use of non-base language words and sentences go against the standard of making the language clear and simple?

To my knowledge there isn't any software on the market that can interpret deviations in natural language. I'd appreciate any help with these matters, I just want to make sure the right things happen and development efforts made are for good purposes.

Thanks in advance,

Stephen Garcia

Sapient 
1 Bartholomew Lane
London EC2N 2AB 
tel 0207 953 3529 
aim: sgarciaLee 

A computer without Windows is like a cake without mustard.

Received on Thursday, 21 November 2002 04:28:08 UTC