Set the page lang attribute
Screen readers select the correct text-to-speech voice and pronunciation engine based on the lang attribute. Without it, VoiceOver defaults to the user's system language, and NVDA uses its default voice — both may mispronounce words in other languages, making content unintelligible. French text read with an English voice profile is incomprehensible. The lang attribute also enables browser translation features (Chrome's Translate), hyphenation algorithms (CSS hyphens: auto), and correct spell checking. This is a WCAG Level A requirement — the most fundamental accessibility baseline.
Quick Reference
- The
<html>element must have alangattribute — WCAG 2.1 SC 3.1.1 (Language of Page, Level A) - The value must be a valid BCP 47 language tag:
en,en-US,fr,zh-Hant,ar, etc. - Use
langon individual elements to indicate language changes within the page — WCAG 2.1 SC 3.1.2 (Level AA) - The
langattribute affects screen reader pronunciation, spell checking, hyphenation, and browser translation - An empty
lang=''is treated as unknown language — equivalent to having nolangattribute
Check
Inspect the <html> element i…
