Are language tags necessary for single language sites, from an obvious country of origin (using .uk or .de, for example)?
If so if
Code:
<html lang="en-GB">
is used, does IE support it? And if it is used, what are he consequences of using a non-standard spelling .... aluminum, for example, used sometimes instead of aluminium, so that it will be picked up in search engines?
You might want to have a read of http://charlvn.blogspot.com/2005/02/lang-attribute.html
As far as I know, nothing supports it, though I did hear somewhere there's an IBM screen reader that does.
However it is hoped that if people start using it then future software may support it.
Last edited by DaveSW; 11-22-2005 at 05:53 AM.
In a world without walls and fences - who needs Windows and Gates?! - Unknown Author
"And there's Bill Gates, the...most...famous...man in the...ah...Microsoft." -- A TV commentator for the 2000 Olympics.
8.1 Specifying the language of content: the lang attribute
Attribute definitions
lang = language-code [CI]
This attribute specifies the base language of an element's attribute values and text content. The default value of this attribute is unknown.
Language information specified via the lang attribute may be used by a user agent to control rendering in a variety of ways. Some situations where author-supplied language information may be helpful include:
Assisting search engines
Assisting speech synthesizers
Helping a user agent select glyph variants for high quality typography
Helping a user agent choose a set of quotation marks
Helping a user agent make decisions about hyphenation, ligatures, and spacing
Assisting spell checkers and grammar checkers
The lang attribute specifies the language of element content and attribute values; whether it is relevant for a given attribute depends on the syntax and semantics of the attribute and the operation involved.
The intent of the lang attribute is to allow user agents to render content more meaningfully based on accepted cultural practice for a given language. This does not imply that user agents should render characters that are atypical for a particular language in less meaningful ways; user agents must make a best attempt to render all characters, regardless of the value specified by lang.
For instance, if characters from the Greek alphabet appear in the midst of English text:
<P><Q lang="en">Her super-powers were the result of
γ-radiation,</Q> he explained.</P>
a user agent (1) should try to render the English content in an appropriate manner (e.g., in its handling the quotation marks) and (2) must make a best attempt to render γ even though it is not an English character.
Please consult the section on undisplayable characters for related information.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks