WCAG 3.0 is an active W3C Working Draft in development by the AGWG. Requirements, assertions, the conformance model and reporting tiers are still being developed and may change. The latest published draft is the 10 September 2026 Working Draft; this site follows the editors’ draft, which also includes exploratory provisions.
developingSupplemental requirement
Speaker Language Identified In Captions
Group: images-and-media • Guideline: captions
Summary in Plain English
Where more than one language is spoken, the captions identify which language each speaker is using. Incidental words are exempt.
Why It Matters
A deaf viewer cannot hear the switch. Naming the language is what prevents a translated line from reading as the speaker's own words.
For each caption that includes multiple languages:
Check that part(s) using a language different from the original language is programmatically determined in the captions.
Expected results
#1 is true.
W3C Working Group Status
W3C Maturity Status:developing
Track / Group:images-and-media
The draft records no open editors' notes on this provision.
W3C Threads on This Provision
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is no recorded discussion to show. Cross-cutting threads that name no
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WCAG 2.2 Criteria That Map Here
From this site's reviewed WCAG 2.2 → WCAG 3 map. The map is
an interpretation, not a W3C mapping: W3C has not published one yet.
No mapping recorded. No WCAG 2.2 criterion in
this site's map is recorded as a predecessor of this provision.
When more than one language is spoken in audio content, the language spoken by each speaker is identified in all captions.
:::except-when
- Words are used incidentally.
:::