Using the language attribute on the HTML element

ID: H57

3.1.1 Language of Page

Technology: html

Type: Technique

When to Use

HTML

Description

The objective of this technique is to identify the default language of a document by providing the lang attribute on the html element.

Identifying the language of the document is important for a number of reasons:

Examples

Defining the content of an HTML document to be in French

<!doctype html>
<html lang="fr"> 
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>document écrit en français</title>
</head>  
<body>     
  ... document écrit en français ...
</body>
</html>

Tests

Procedure

Examine the html element of the document.

  1. Check that the html element has a lang attribute.
  2. Check that the value of the lang attribute conforms to BCP 47: Tags for Identifying Languages; Matching of Language Tags or its successor and reflects the primary language used by the Web page.

Expected Results

Resources