This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Checking language markup: setting the lang attribute correctly
Every page must state its language in the code, and foreign-language sections must be individually marked up. Screen readers use this to choose their pronunciation — without it, English text gets read aloud with German pronunciation rules and is barely understandable.
- This criterion is cheap to meet and still often overlooked, especially on bilingual websites: the English version inherits the template's lang="de". This nearly happened to us ourselves when building the English page.
- For individual words, use judgement. Established loanwords need no markup; a whole English paragraph or a foreign-language quote does.
