Is is good to use local language on the alt tag?

Question

Sometimes, we have to do multi-lingual content in e-newsletter. Is is good to use local language on the alt tag? or just plain English.

Answer 1

One important purpose of the alt attribute on the img element is allow screen readers (used by visually impaired people) and other "non-visual" software to know what the image represents. If you want to localize your HTML page you should also localize the contents of the alt attribute.

Answer 2

It depends on your page content. Use the same language in alt tag what you are using for your page content. Obviously you don't want Arabic language to show-up when image is missing; if your default page language is English.

Hope it answers your question.

Answer 3

If you could not use an image and had to express the information using text (keeping in mind that text around the image is still there and duplicating content isn't useful) — what language would you use?

That is the language you should use for alt text.

Answer 4

I can only assure you that you should use translated texts in attributes. Not just alt, but title for example.

If you use English texts there, this should be considered hard-coded string. That is just because that kind of strings are visible to user - even if image is available, contents of these attribute are visible in a tooltip when you place mouse over the image (or in the status bar, depending on web browser).