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  • How the Lighthouse invalid <html> lang value audit fails
  • How to fix an invalid HTML lang attribute
  • Resources

<html> element does not have a valid value for its [lang] attribute

May 2, 2019 — Updated Sep 19, 2019
Appears in: Accessibility audits
On this page
  • How the Lighthouse invalid <html> lang value audit fails
  • How to fix an invalid HTML lang attribute
  • Resources

To ensure correct pronunciation, screen readers use a different sound library for each language they support. Screen readers can switch between these language libraries easily, but only if a web page specifies which language to read for a given piece of content.

To ensure correct pronunciation of the page as a whole, you must specify a valid BCP 47 language for the <html> element.

How the Lighthouse invalid <html> lang value audit fails #

Lighthouse flags pages whose <html> element doesn't have a valid value for its lang attribute:

Lighthouse audit showing the html element has an invalid value for its lang attribute

Note that the <html> element does not have a [lang] attribute audit checks whether a lang attribute is present. This audit checks whether the value for that attribute is valid.

The Lighthouse Accessibility score is a weighted average of all the accessibility audits. See the Lighthouse accessibility scoring post for more information.

How to fix an invalid HTML lang attribute #

To ensure your page's content is pronounced correctly for screen reader users, use a valid language code in the lang attribute of the <html> element.

For example, this sample code sets the language of the document to English:

<html lang="en">

Resources #

  • Source code for <html> element does not have a valid value for its [lang] attribute audit
  • <html> element must have a valid value for the lang attribute (Deque University)
Last updated: Sep 19, 2019 — Improve article
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