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    dc:title="lang attributes accross (X)HTML versions"
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    dc:subject="HTML"
    dc:description=" There has been a discussion about lang attributes on the RDFa mailing-list, on what should be used depending on the HTML version. So I have done a bit or research and compilation and here are the results. The lang..."
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    dc:date="2007-08-28T06:40:28+00:00" />
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                        <h2 class="entry-header">lang attributes accross (X)HTML versions</h2>
                           <div class="entry-body">

<p>There has been a <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2007Aug/0140.html" title="outline language-dependent features from Mark Birbeck on 2007-08-16">discussion about <code>lang</code> attributes on the RDFa</a> mailing-list, on what should be used depending on the HTML version. So I have done a bit or research and compilation and here are the results.</p>

<h3 id="lang-attr">The lang attribute</h3>

<p>W3C Internationalization has created a full tutorial on <cite class="title"><a href="http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/language-decl/">declaring language in XHTML and HTML</a></cite>.As the tutorial says that  <q>information about the language in use on a page is important for accessibility, styling, searching.</q>. You can also read <cite class="title"><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/#ri20030510.102829377" title="Internationalization Best Practices: Specifying Language in XHTML &amp; HTML Content">Using attributes to declare language</a></cite>.</p>

<h3 id="abstract">lang attributes in specifications</h3>

<table>
<tr>
<th>version</th>
<th>syntaxe</th>
<th>content-type</th>
<th>comment</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/dirlang.html#adef-lang" title="Language information and text direction">html 4.01</a></td>
<td>lang</td>
<td>text/html</td>
<td>There are specific rules for lang inheritance of tables.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_7" title="XHTML 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition)">xhtml 1.0</a></td>
<td>lang<br/> xml:lang</td>
<td>text/html<br/> application/xhtml+xml</td>
<td>xhtml 1.0 is using the definition given in the HTML 4.01 specification. The issue is that the specification gives the possibility to serve the same document with two different content-types. When there is a conflict between <code>xml:lang</code> and <code>lang</code> values, <code>xml:lang</code> takes <strong>precedence even served as <code>text/html</code></strong>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/changes.html#a_changes" title="XHTML 1.1 - Changes from XHTML 1.0 Strict">xhtml 1.1</a></td>
<td>xml:lang</td>
<td>application/xhtml+xml</td>
<td>The semantics of xhtml 1.1 is defined in html 4.01 but <q>"On every element, the <code>lang</code> attribute has been removed in favor of the <code>xml:lang</code> attribute (as defined in [XHTMLMOD])."</q></td>
</tr>
<tr style="background-color:#ECECEC;">
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-i18n.html#adef_i18n_xml:lang" title="XHTML 2.0 - XHTML I18N Attribute Module">xhtml 2.0</a><br/>working draft</td>
<td>xml:lang</td>
<td>application/xhtml+xml</td>
<td>xhtml 2.0 follows the rules <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag" title="Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fourth Edition)">defined in XML for the xml:lang attribute</a>. There are no specific rules defined for tables. By the user agent conformance rules, <code>lang</code> attributes must be ignored.</td>
</tr>
<tr style="background-color:#CECECE;">
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#the-lang" title="HTML 5">html5/html</a><br/>editor draft</td>
<td>lang</td>
<td>text/html</td>
<td><q>The <code>lang</code> attribute may only be used on elements of HTML documents. Authors <strong>must not use</strong> the <code>lang</code>  attribute in XML documents.</q></td>
</tr>
<tr style="background-color:#CECECE;">
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#the-lang" title="HTML 5">html5/xml</a><br/>editor draft</td>
<td>xml:lang</td>
<td>application/xhtml+xml</td>
<td>html5/xml follows the rules <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag" title="Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fourth Edition)">defined in XML for the xml:lang attribute</a>.The editor document says that <q>The <code>xml:lang</code> attribute may only be used on elements of XML documents. Authors <strong>must not use</strong> the <code>xml:lang</code> attribute in HTML documents.</q></td>
</tr>
</table>
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                           <div id="more" class="entry-more">

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                       <p class="postinfo">Filed by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/karl/">Karl Dubost</a> on August 28, 2007  6:40 AM in <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/technology/html/">HTML</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/archive/web_spotting/reference/">Reference</a><br />
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<h3 class="comments-header" id="comments">Comments</h3>
<div class="comment" id="comment-62605">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c062605">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>Richard Ishida </strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c062605">#</a> 2007-08-28</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>"When there is a conflict between xml:lang and lang values, xml:lang takes precedence even served as text/html."</p>

<p>Well, that's the theory, but as far as I'm aware from testing it is not at all the practice.  This may not be clear to some people, and may cause some confusion when they read this post.</p>

</div>
</div>


<div class="comment" id="comment-62658">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c062658">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>Karl Dubost <a class="commenter-profile" href="http://www.w3.org/People/karl/"><img alt="Author Profile Page" src="http://www.w3.org/QA/sununga/mt-static/images/comment/mt_logo.png" width="16" height="16" /></a></strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c062658">#</a> 2007-08-28</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>@Richard: This is an interesting information. Do you have a link to an implementation report for the products which behave as such and those which don't and in which circumstances. I'm pretty sure it would be helpful for the community and the HTML WG.</p>

</div>
</div>


<div class="comment" id="comment-63437">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c063437">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>Anne van Kesteren </strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c063437">#</a> 2007-09-02</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>It's only the case when xml:lang is inserted through the DOM. The attribute as such can't be written in a text/html document as text/html doesn't do namespaces. (You can test this all fairly trivially using the :lang selector.)</p>

</div>
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<div class="comment" id="comment-64721">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c064721">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>hemal shah </strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c064721">#</a> 2007-09-10</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>Hi there, i was not able to read this page (comments section) properly in IE7. So out of doubt, i checked this page for its validity... this page is not valid and has four errors. but primarly, can some one look why it does not show properly in IE7?</p>

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<div class="comment" id="comment-174201">
<p class="comment-meta" id="c174201">
<span class="comment-meta-author"><strong>Dom </strong></span>
<span class="comment-meta-date"><a href="#c174201">#</a> 2009-03-06</span>
</p>
<div class="comment-bulk">
<p>Note that there are now <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xhtml2/2009Jan/0049.html" rel="nofollow">ongoing and promising discussions</a> on bringing the lang attribute to all versions of XHTML.</p>

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