Application Launcher

3.1.1 Language of Page

Introduction

This document provides information about the related accessibility checks:

Document has required lang attribute(s)
Document has a valid language code
Reading order direction is marked using the HTML element’s dir attribute if the documents primary language is read right to left

What

The human language of the page must be declared in the code of the page.

Why

When the human language of your content is correctly declared, it allows software to accurately present your content.

Who

Affected users

This check affects the following users who have:

Sight impairments: And others who access the site contents with a screen reader or other text-to-speech software, for example, the site should correctly use the English pronunciation to read English content rather than trying to speak English for content written in French.
Hearing loss: And other users who rely on captions for video and audio.
Cognitive limitations: Such as dyslexia and others who might find it difficult to read written material. Other users in this category include persons with any language or learning disability who use text-to-speech software.
Translation needs: Translation software provides automated translations of your content.
No impairments: Search engines can more accurately show your content to the relevant people because it understands the language of your content. Browsers may not render text content accurately if the language of the web page is not declared correctly.

User story

Maria, a Norwegian carpenter with dyslexia:

"When I go online to read user manuals for some of the machinery I use, they are written in English but my text-to-speech software will read the English text with a Norwegian voice. That makes it very hard for me to understand the instructions."

How

Follow these steps to repair this issue.

Locate the opening HTML tag at the beginning of your webpage.
Add the lang attribute to the HTML tag, followed by a valid two or three letter language code to the opening <html> element.
In the following example code, the lang value is set to en for English:
```
<html lang="en">
```
For XHTML, both lang and xml:lang must be set to the same value.
```
<html xml:lang="en" lang=”en”>
```
For languages that are written from right to left, the “dir” attribute should be added to the HTML element to ensure proper text directionality. This example shows the "lang" attribute set to "ar" for Arabic and the "dir" attribute is set to "rtl".
```
<html lang="ar" dir="rtl">
```

Note
The value should represent the primary language of the page.

Tip: Valid language codes are defined in the ISO 639 specification

Who in your team can typically fix this?

In order to repair issues flagged by this check, refer the issue to:

Front-end Development. (HTML knowledge is needed.)

Additional resources

This section gives links to resources that help with the issues discussed in this document.

WCAG criteria

WCAG success criterion 3.1.1 Language of Page (W3C website)

Introduction

This document provides information about the related accessibility checks:

Document has required lang attribute(s)
Document has a valid language code
Reading order direction is marked using the HTML element’s dir attribute if the documents primary language is read right to left

What

The human language of the page must be declared in the code of the page.

Why

When the human language of your content is correctly declared, it allows software to accurately present your content.

Who

Affected users

This check affects the following users who have:

Sight impairments: And others who access the site contents with a screen reader or other text-to-speech software, for example, the site should correctly use the English pronunciation to read English content rather than trying to speak English for content written in French.
Hearing loss: And other users who rely on captions for video and audio.
Cognitive limitations: Such as dyslexia and others who might find it difficult to read written material. Other users in this category include persons with any language or learning disability who use text-to-speech software.
Translation needs: Translation software provides automated translations of your content.
No impairments: Search engines can more accurately show your content to the relevant people because it understands the language of your content. Browsers may not render text content accurately if the language of the web page is not declared correctly.

User story

Maria, a Norwegian carpenter with dyslexia:

How

Follow these steps to repair this issue.

Locate the opening HTML tag at the beginning of your webpage.
Add the lang attribute to the HTML tag, followed by a valid two or three letter language code to the opening <html> element.
In the following example code, the lang value is set to en for English:
```
<html lang="en">
```
For XHTML, both lang and xml:lang must be set to the same value.
```
<html xml:lang="en" lang=”en”>
```
For languages that are written from right to left, the “dir” attribute should be added to the HTML element to ensure proper text directionality. This example shows the "lang" attribute set to "ar" for Arabic and the "dir" attribute is set to "rtl".
```
<html lang="ar" dir="rtl">
```

Note
The value should represent the primary language of the page.

Tip: Valid language codes are defined in the ISO 639 specification

Who in your team can typically fix this?

In order to repair issues flagged by this check, refer the issue to:

Front-end Development. (HTML knowledge is needed.)

Additional resources

This section gives links to resources that help with the issues discussed in this document.

WCAG criteria

WCAG success criterion 3.1.1 Language of Page (W3C website)

Introduction

This document provides information about the related accessibility checks:

Document has required lang attribute(s)
Document has a valid language code
Reading order direction is marked using the HTML element’s dir attribute if the documents primary language is read right to left

What

The human language of the page must be declared in the code of the page.

Why

When the human language of your content is correctly declared, it allows software to accurately present your content.

Who

Affected users

This check affects the following users who have:

Sight impairments: And others who access the site contents with a screen reader or other text-to-speech software, for example, the site should correctly use the English pronunciation to read English content rather than trying to speak English for content written in French.
Hearing loss: And other users who rely on captions for video and audio.
Cognitive limitations: Such as dyslexia and others who might find it difficult to read written material. Other users in this category include persons with any language or learning disability who use text-to-speech software.
Translation needs: Translation software provides automated translations of your content.
No impairments: Search engines can more accurately show your content to the relevant people because it understands the language of your content. Browsers may not render text content accurately if the language of the web page is not declared correctly.

User story

Maria, a Norwegian carpenter with dyslexia:

How

Follow these steps to repair this issue.

Locate the opening HTML tag at the beginning of your webpage.
Add the lang attribute to the HTML tag, followed by a valid two or three letter language code to the opening <html> element.
In the following example code, the lang value is set to en for English:
```
<html lang="en">
```
For XHTML, both lang and xml:lang must be set to the same value.
```
<html xml:lang="en" lang=”en”>
```
For languages that are written from right to left, the “dir” attribute should be added to the HTML element to ensure proper text directionality. This example shows the "lang" attribute set to "ar" for Arabic and the "dir" attribute is set to "rtl".
```
<html lang="ar" dir="rtl">
```

Note
The value should represent the primary language of the page.

Tip: Valid language codes are defined in the ISO 639 specification

Who in your team can typically fix this?

In order to repair issues flagged by this check, refer the issue to:

Front-end Development. (HTML knowledge is needed.)

Additional resources

This section gives links to resources that help with the issues discussed in this document.

WCAG criteria

WCAG success criterion 3.1.1 Language of Page (W3C website)

Introduction

What

Why

Who

Affected users

User story

How

Who in your team can typically fix this?

Additional resources

WCAG criteria

Other links

Introduction

What

Why

Who

Affected users

User story

How

Who in your team can typically fix this?

Additional resources

WCAG criteria

Other links

Introduction

What

Why

Who

Affected users

User story

How

Who in your team can typically fix this?

Additional resources

WCAG criteria

Other links

Did not find what you were looking for?

Did not find what you were looking for?

Document has a valid language code

Introduction

What

Why

Who

Affected users

User story

How

Who in your team can typically fix this?

Additional resources

WCAG criteria

Other links

Related articles

Document has a valid language code

Introduction

What

Why

Who

Affected users

User story

How

Who in your team can typically fix this?

Additional resources

WCAG criteria

Other links

Related articles

Document has a valid language code

Introduction

What

Why

Who

Affected users

User story

How

Who in your team can typically fix this?

Additional resources

WCAG criteria

Other links

Related articles

Did not find what you were looking for?

Did not find what you were looking for?