Understanding WCAG SC 3.1.2 Language of Parts
3.1.2 Language of Parts
3.1.2 Language of Parts: The human language of each passage or phrase in the content can be programmatically determined except for proper names, technical terms, words of indeterminate language, and words or phrases that have become part of the vernacular of the immediately surrounding text. (Level AA).
Language of Parts Transcript
Hello everyone. Today we’re going to talk about the language of parts. We are also going to talk about its importance, the benefits, some good practices, failure scenarios, and how we can fix them.In this video, we’ll be discussing the importance of programmatically determining the secondary language of web content when web pages host content where phrases, sentences, or quotes are available from a different language other than the primary language of the web pages and in its own alphabet. The secondary language of such content must be programmatically determined. This includes UI controls such as links or drop-downs that allow users to switch from the primary language to an alternative one.
However, there are some exceptions. Proper names, technical jargon, and words that are accepted as part of the primary or surrounding language need not have their language specifically mentioned. For example, in a sentence like “Where is our rendezvous point?” the word “rendezvous” is a French word but is accepted as part of English.
Now let’s see some benefits of specifying the language of parts. When the language of parts is specified, screen readers and Braille translation software would be able to use appropriate pronunciation and Braille control language, respectively. Other text-to-speech software that helps cognitively disabled users to read and learn would be able to convert the text into appropriate languages when providing speech outputs. People who rely on captions would be able to benefit as well. Both graphical browsers and conventional browsers would be able to render multilingual content properly.
Let’s take a look at some examples of good practices. An insurance site available in English and Spanish provides a link to switch to Spanish. The link text is in the Spanish alphabet itself, and a tag has language=”es-US” before the link text. Another example is a blog post that talks about cars and quotes the French equivalent of car, “voiture.” This particular word is properly identified with language=”fr” within HTML just before the word.
Now let’s look at some failure scenarios as well. A website that is available in multiple languages has a drop-down available to choose the language, and the language choices are in the native alphabet of the respective languages. However, there is no language attribute provided to identify the language programmatically. Additionally, a web page has content on DDR and includes some real phrases in the German language and its own alphabet, but the language is not programmatically identified with the language attribute.
Now let’s see how we can fix them. It’s important to ensure that all the secondary language content identifies their languages programmatically with the use of the language attribute and appropriate language code wherever such content is available on the page. When web pages are available in multiple languages and different dialects, like Brazilian Portuguese, specify the appropriate language tokens for the language attribute.
In conclusion, programmatically determining the secondary language of web content is essential for improved accessibility for all users.
This is the end of the video. Thank you for joining. If you like the video, do like and subscribe.
This success criterion requires that the contents written in multiple languages on the same web page has the human language defined in a programmatically determinable way. In other words, where the default language of the page is, say English but the page has phrases, sentences, paragraphs or passages from any other language, then the secondary language of such texts must be programmatically determined.
Webpage content is in English and there is brand which is in Spanish is it required to add a language attribute to the brand name?
Hi Ankit,
Yes, we need to add the language attribute to the brand name that is in a different language.