RE: Mixing languages

I agree with Kevin that it is most often a "plain language' issue.


I would expect it to come up in user testing with people who have disabilities that significantly affecting their use of language, more than anything. For example people who use symbolic languages or sign languages might find the problem more remarkable.


Defining what words are and are not in a language is difficult, because languages change, including absorbing words from other languages, pretty fast.  Hence, deciding whether adding a word in another language is "simple language" is also hard.


But it is hard like "is this *the* perfect alt text" is a hard question to answer. Experts may differ slightly in the details, but overall it's actually feasible; normal people can generally get it "right enough" for practical purposes.


Adding english words in Norwegian is often pretty reasonable, but it still depends on the specifics. Adding words that are only common in a particular regional variant of english, from the Shetlands, Ozarks, Guyana, Aotearoa, Mumbai, or Soweto, might cause lots of complaints where a different word barely registers as "foreign".


I doubt anyone would have accepted the word "hygge" in an english text when WCAG 2 was published, but now it is pretty common and I would likely find text using it to be reasonable.


So whether the ad hoc use of loanwords is the bête noire of some group of people on account of their disability, or just adds a frisson of joie de vivre to your text depends on the context, especially the lingua franca of the audience in question. (Or "what Kevin said", but in fancy and harder-to-understand english).


cheers


Chaals


On Wednesday, June 14, 2023 03:23:34 (+02:00), Kevin Prince wrote:


I would suggest that it's contextual - English uses plenty of non-English words all the time (many have become absorbed) so a page of English with the odd word should be rendered as English. In New Zealand English we through around kia ora, nga mihi , whanau and Aotearoa with abandon and they are accepted as part of NZ English for the purpose of mark-up.

I don't see it at all as a WCAG issue: it might be a Plain Language issue if the words are being used to exclude of course.


Kevin Prince
Product Accessibility & Usability Consultant


fostermoore.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Till Halbach <halbach@nr.no>

Greetings,

I know about marking up an entire document (WCAG SC 3.1.1) and parts of it (3.1.2), but I wonder whether there are any recommendation regarding the mixing of languages in documents. Probably not in WCAG, but maybe elsewhere?

For instance, it is not uncommon in Norway that people occasionally braid single English words into their sentences. Or, I could be refering from a Norwegian page to an article with only an English title.

So the argument would be that many people are not fluent in foreign languages, and maybe also that mixing languages increases one's cognitive load too much, and the reader might become confused. Thus, this should be avoided.

However, after more than 15 years with user testing, I cannot recall to have heard a single complaint about this.

Please share your thoughts. Thanks!

--
Best regards,
Till Halbach, seniorforsker / senior research scientist Norwegian Computing Center / Norsk Regnesentral (NR) | http://nr.no/




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Chaals Nevile
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