When building a separate structure of content elements using “Inheritance” or “Separate” modes for a page or FCE container element you strictly don’t need to tag these elements with a language. However, for two reasons you will have to:
- If you want language access control to be enforced you will have to set the language for elements.
- If you have set up your TypoScript template with “config.sys_language_overlay = hideNonTranslated” (recommended) you will not see anything unless you tag elements with the correct language!
- http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/core-documentation/doc_l10nguide/1.0.0/view/1/3/