<html xmlns:un="http://usablenet.com/namespaces/508_rules">
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="josh.css">
   <head>
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
   
      <title>Detailed View for rule: Clarify natural language usage</title>
      <!--
  508/W3C Accessibility Suite OEM V2 for Macromedia Dreamweaver
  (C) Copyright 2001-2005 UsableNet Inc. All rights reserved.
  -->
   </head>
   <body bgcolor="#ffffff">
      <div id="Description">
         <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%" class="main">
            <tr>
               <td valign="top" nowrap="true" class="name">Clarify natural language usage</td>
               <td valign="top" nowrap="true" class="compatibility">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="divider"><img src="dwres:18084" width="100%" height="1"></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td valign="top" align="right" nowrap="true" colspan="2" class="requirements">
                  
                  WAI
                  
                  / 
                  
                  WCAG
                  
                  1.0 checkpoint 4.1
                  
               </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="clearseparation">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="clearseparation">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td valign="top" colspan="2" class="description"><b>Issue Description</b><br>
                  
                  <p>
                     If the page contains chunks of text written using different
                     languages such as English, French, or Spanish, then every
                     chunk should be contained in a tag with a LANG attribute.
                     
                  </p>
                  
               </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="clearseparation">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="clearseparation">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td valign="top" colspan="2" class="description"><b>How to check</b>
                  
                  <p>
                     Clearly identify changes in the natural language used in the
                     text of a document and any text equivalents as follows: 
                     
                  </p>
                  
                  <ul>
                     
                     <li>
                        Identify chunks of text written using different natural
                        languages
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Add a LANG attribute to the innermost element containing
                        the text for each chunk identified previously
                        
                     </li>
                     
                  </ul>
                  
               </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="clearseparation">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan="2" class="clearseparation">&nbsp;</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td valign="top" colspan="2" class="description"><b>Issue Explanation</b><br>
                  
                  <p>
                     If you use different natural languages on a single page,
                     make sure any language switch is clearly identified with
                     the LANG attribute.
                     
                  </p>
                  
                  
                  <p>
                     Identifying language switches on a page is important for
                     the following reasons:
                     
                  </p>
                  
                  
                  <ul>
                     
                     <li>
                        Users reading the document in Braille will be able to
                        substitute the appropriate control codes (markup) where
                        language changes occur to ensure that the Braille
                        translation software will generate the correct characters
                        (accented characters, for instance)
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Speech synthesizers that speak multiple languages will be
                        able to generate the text in the appropriate accent with
                        proper pronunciation. If changes are not marked, the
                        synthesizer will pronounce the words in the language it
                        works in, usually producing sounds that cannot be
                        understood
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Users who are unable to translate between languages
                        themselves will be able to have unfamiliar languages
                        translated by machine translators
                        
                     </li>
                     
                  </ul>
                  
                  
                  <p>
                     It is also important because more and more sites will be
                     accessed through audio-only devices such as telephones.
                     
                  </p>
                  
                  
                  <p>
                     The LANG attribute may be helpful in many other situations,
                     such as the following:
                     
                  </p>
                  
                  
                  <ul>
                     
                     <li>
                        Assisting search engines
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Helping a browser select glyph variants for high quality
                        typography
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Helping a browser choose a set of quotation marks
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Helping a browser make decisions about hyphenation,
                        ligatures, and spacing
                        
                     </li>
                     
                     
                     <li>
                        Assisting spell checkers and grammar checkers
                        
                     </li>
                     
                  </ul>
                  
               </td>
            </tr>
         </table>
      </div>
   </body>
</html>