Digital Accessibility Knowledge Base

valid-lang

lang attribute must have a valid value

Who might be affected
Screen Reader
Cognitive

Description

The interface language statement (lang attribute) allows user agents, in general, and assistive technologies, in particular, to parse and read the content more accurately. Internet technologies use the "ISO 639-1 language codes". Any value of the lang attribute that is not part of this list is not valid and should be replaced with a valid one.

Quick Fixes

Make sure that the "lang" attributes values are valid
See the full "ISO 639-1 language codes" list.
1

2  <!DOCTYPE html>
3

4✓ <html lang="en">
5    <!-- html content -->
6  </html>
7

8✗ <html lang="english">
9    <!-- html content -->
10  </html>
11

How Users Are Affected

Assistive technologies may misread or mispronounce the content, and therefore be misleading the user or even prevent him from understanding and using the interface properly.

WCAG Success criteria

This issue might cause elements to fail one or more of the following Success criteria:
3.1.2 Language of Parts (AA)