xml:langAs Opera has support for WML I thought I would read the specification for a bit. I started with the first one, Wireless Markup Language 1.3 (beware, PDF). Some people who developed the specification apparently wanted some pet features in, like supporting ­ and in addition to the five predefined XML entities. Opera does not support that, fortunately. Special meaning is also defined for the $ character. Bah! You have to escape it as $$ if you actually want to use it. There is a lot more horror in there. Anyway, then I came at the xml:lang section. Despite that section 2.12 of the XML specification clearly defines how it works, the WML specification says (emphasis mine):
An element’s language must be established according to the following precedence (from highest lowest):
- Based on the xml:lang attribute specified for the element.
- Based on the xml:lang attribute specified by the closest parent element.
- Based on any language information included in the transport and document meta data (see sections 6.1 and 11.3.2 for more detail).
- Based on user agent default preferences.
Right.