• Success Criterion 3.1.1
  • Conformance level A

Language Attribute Set to an Invalid or Malformed Value

3.1.1 — Language of Page

Scenario

Setting

A survey tool's question builder

What’s wrong

Invalid values: lang="english", lang="EN-UK", region codes malformed beyond recognition.

Example 

<html lang="english">
<body>
  <label for="q1">Question 1</label>
  <input type="text" id="q1">
</body>
</html>

Why it matters

An invalid language code like 'english' isn't a recognized BCP 47 tag, so assistive tech can't match it to any known speech engine and silently falls back to a default.

How to test

Check the html lang value against the ISO language code list: values like "english" or malformed region codes ("EN-UK") are invalid and fail.

How to fix

Use valid BCP 47 subtags only, like "en" or "en-GB", never a full language name or a malformed region code.

<html lang="en">
<body>
  <label for="q1">Question 1</label>
  <input type="text" id="q1">
</body>
</html>

Outcome

A survey author's preview reads back in a properly matched voice, confirming the question text is correct.

Who is affected

Screen reader users building or previewing surveys get inconsistent pronunciation because the declared value doesn't map to a real language.

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