Ensure Every HTML Document Has a lang Attribute

An HTML document must contain a valid lang attribute or must correspond to a valid lang code for multilingual screen reader users who may prefer a language that differs from the default.

Why It Matters

When going through the screen reader setup process, users select a default language. If the language of a webpage is not specified, the screen reader resorts to the default language set by the user.

Language settings become a problem for users who speak multiple languages and access websites in more than one language. It is essential to specify the language of a webpage and ensure that it is valid so website text is pronounced correctly.

Fixing the Issue

Developers need to add a lang attribute to the html element (e.g. <html lang=”en”>) that represents the primary language of the document.

Make sure you identify a language in the opening <html> element and that the attribute is spelled correctly.

You can even specify some dialects with codes such as “en-US” to highlight American English or “fr-CA” for Canadian French.

Good Code Example

Code example

<html lang="en">
<!--document head and body-->
</html>

Copy

If the language changes within a document, you can specify this as follows:

Code example

Text in one language text in another language Copy

If you are using a language that is written right to left, be sure to specify this using the dir attribute:

Code example

Arabic text here Copy

If you would like to specify that a language is written left to right, you can fill the value of the dir attribute with the value “ltr”.

Test Cases

For more examples, visit W3C’s GitHub’s ATC Rules library.

Ensure Every HTML Document Has a lang Attribute

Written and researched for humans by humans

Why It Matters

Fixing the Issue

Good Code Example

Test Cases