Ensure the lang Attribute of the Element Has a Valid Value

Web accessibility standards state that an HTML document must contain a valid lang attribute or must correspond to a valid lang code for multilingual screen reader users.

Why It Matters

When setting up a screen reader, users need to select a default language. When a website’s language is not specified, the screen reader will use the default language as set by the user.

By setting the language of a web page, you ensure content is pronounced correctly.

Fixing the Issue

Add a lang or xml:lang attribute to the html element (e.g. <html lang=”en”> or <html xml:lang=”en”>) that represents the primary language of the document.

Make sure you identify a language in the opening <html> element and spell the attribute 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:

Text in one language text in another language

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 the lang Attribute of the <html> Element Has a Valid Value

Written and researched for humans by humans

Why It Matters

Fixing the Issue

Good Code Example

Test Cases