diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index ecb3ebf..3b428a2 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -197,7 +197,6 @@
                 <configuration>
                     <publishingServerId>central-portal-snapshots</publishingServerId>
                     <autoPublish>true</autoPublish>
-                    <waitUntil>published</waitUntil>
                 </configuration>
             </plugin>
         </plugins>
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/Response.java b/src/main/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/Response.java
index 59a32d1..a331829 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/Response.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/Response.java
@@ -56,6 +56,15 @@ public class Response
      * When true, the language is preserved in the ETag calculation.
      */
     private final Predicate<MediaType> isMediaTypeLangSignificant;
+
+    /**
+     * The languages the request accepts, in priority order.
+     *
+     * Distinct from the languages offered: a language-significant entity is rendered against the whole acceptable list,
+     * falling back per value, so two requests selecting the same variant can still differ in content. Empty when the
+     * caller does not supply it, in which case the entity tag ignores language as it did before.
+     */
+    private final List<Locale> acceptableLanguages;
     
     public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag entityTag, List<MediaType> mediaTypes, List<Locale> languages, List<String> encodings)
     {
@@ -76,7 +85,31 @@ public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag ent
      */
     public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag entityTag, List<MediaType> mediaTypes, List<Locale> languages, List<String> encodings, Predicate<MediaType> isMediaTypeLangSignificant)
     {
-        this(request, entity, lastModified, entityTag, getVariants(mediaTypes, languages, encodings, isMediaTypeLangSignificant), isMediaTypeLangSignificant);
+        this(request, entity, lastModified, entityTag, mediaTypes, languages, encodings, isMediaTypeLangSignificant, List.of());
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Builds model response from request, carrying the languages the request accepts.
+     *
+     * Supplying them makes the entity tag distinguish representations that differ only by accepted language - a
+     * language-significant entity is rendered against the whole list, not against the single language of the selected
+     * variant. See the seven-argument variant constructor for why the variant alone is the wrong granularity.
+     *
+     * @param request response entity
+     * @param entity response dataset
+     * @param lastModified last modified date
+     * @param entityTag entity tag
+     * @param mediaTypes supported media types
+     * @param languages content languages offered
+     * @param encodings content type encodings
+     * @param isMediaTypeLangSignificant predicate indicating if language is significant
+     * @param acceptableLanguages languages the request accepts, in priority order
+     */
+    public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag entityTag, List<MediaType> mediaTypes, List<Locale> languages, List<String> encodings, Predicate<MediaType> isMediaTypeLangSignificant, List<Locale> acceptableLanguages)
+    {
+        this(request, entity, lastModified, entityTag,
+            selectVariant(request, getVariants(mediaTypes, languages, encodings, isMediaTypeLangSignificant)),
+            isMediaTypeLangSignificant, acceptableLanguages);
     }
 
     /**
@@ -91,10 +124,58 @@ public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag ent
      */
     public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag entityTag, List<Variant> variants, Predicate<MediaType> isMediaTypeLangSignificant)
     {
-        this(request, entity, lastModified, entityTag, request.selectVariant(variants) != null ? request.selectVariant(variants) : request.selectVariant(removeLanguages(variants)), isMediaTypeLangSignificant);
+        this(request, entity, lastModified, entityTag, selectVariant(request, variants), isMediaTypeLangSignificant);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Selects the response variant, falling back to a language-neutral representation when the request accepts none of
+     * the offered languages.
+     *
+     * The language-neutral representations are offered alongside the language-specific ones in a single selection pass,
+     * rather than retried in a second pass over a language-stripped list. <code>ContainerRequest.selectVariant</code>
+     * overwrites its <code>varyValue</code> field on every call, and Jersey builds the <code>Vary</code> response header
+     * from whatever the most recent call left behind - dropping the header entirely when that call matched nothing. A
+     * second pass therefore published either a <code>Vary</code> with no <code>Accept-Language</code> dimension or no
+     * <code>Vary</code> at all, advertising a cache key that ignores a language the entity was in fact negotiated over,
+     * and leaving a shared cache free to serve one language's representation to a client that asked for another. Offering
+     * both in one list keeps the dimension in <code>Vary</code> and still serves a representation when no offered
+     * language is acceptable.
+     *
+     * @param request current request
+     * @param variants variant list
+     * @return selected variant, or null if not even a language-neutral representation is acceptable
+     */
+    protected static Variant selectVariant(Request request, List<Variant> variants)
+    {
+        List<Variant> offer = new ArrayList<>(variants);
+
+        for (Variant languageNeutral : removeLanguages(variants))
+            if (!offer.contains(languageNeutral)) offer.add(languageNeutral);
+
+        return request.selectVariant(offer);
     }
 
     public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag entityTag, Variant variant, Predicate<MediaType> isMediaTypeLangSignificant) throws NotAcceptableException
+    {
+        this(request, entity, lastModified, entityTag, variant, isMediaTypeLangSignificant, List.of());
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Builds model response from a selected variant and the languages the request accepts.
+     *
+     * The acceptable languages are what a language-significant entity is actually rendered against - the renderer falls
+     * back per value over the whole list - so they, not the selected variant's single language, are what makes one
+     * representation different from another. Supplying them makes the entity tag distinguish those representations.
+     *
+     * @param request response entity
+     * @param entity response dataset
+     * @param lastModified last modified date
+     * @param entityTag entity tag
+     * @param variant selected variant
+     * @param isMediaTypeLangSignificant predicate indicating if language is significant
+     * @param acceptableLanguages languages the request accepts, in priority order
+     */
+    public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag entityTag, Variant variant, Predicate<MediaType> isMediaTypeLangSignificant, List<Locale> acceptableLanguages) throws NotAcceptableException
     {
         if (request == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Request cannot be null");
         if (entity == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Object cannot be null");
@@ -110,6 +191,7 @@ public Response(Request request, Object entity, Date lastModified, EntityTag ent
         this.entityTag = entityTag;
         this.variant = variant;
         this.isMediaTypeLangSignificant = isMediaTypeLangSignificant;
+        this.acceptableLanguages = acceptableLanguages;
     }
 
     public static List<Variant> getVariants(List<MediaType> mediaTypes, List<Locale> languages, List<String> encodings)
@@ -308,6 +390,15 @@ public EntityTag getVariantEntityTag()
             BigInteger entityTagHash = new BigInteger(getEntityTag().getValue(), 16);
             BigInteger variantHash = BigInteger.valueOf(getVariant().hashCode());
             entityTagHash = entityTagHash.add(variantHash);
+
+            // a language-significant entity is rendered against the whole acceptable-language list, not the one language the
+            // selected variant carries. Two requests selecting the same language-neutral variant still differ: with "lt" and
+            // "de" against an offer of English, one renders the Lithuanian values the data holds and the other falls back to
+            // English. Hashing the variant alone gave those two representations one strong ETag, so a conditional request
+            // could be answered 304 with the wrong language
+            if (!getAcceptableLanguages().isEmpty() && getIsMediaTypeLangSignificant().test(getVariant().getMediaType()))
+                entityTagHash = entityTagHash.add(BigInteger.valueOf(getAcceptableLanguages().hashCode()));
+
             return new EntityTag(entityTagHash.toString(16));
         }
         
@@ -336,6 +427,16 @@ public Predicate<MediaType> getIsMediaTypeLangSignificant()
     {
         return isMediaTypeLangSignificant;
     }
+
+    /**
+     * Returns the languages the request accepts, in priority order, or an empty list when the caller did not supply them.
+     *
+     * @return acceptable languages
+     */
+    public List<Locale> getAcceptableLanguages()
+    {
+        return acceptableLanguages;
+    }
     
     public Request getRequest()
     {
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/LocaleEntityTagTest.java b/src/test/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/LocaleEntityTagTest.java
index c97ce43..047caf1 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/LocaleEntityTagTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/atomgraph/core/model/impl/LocaleEntityTagTest.java
@@ -42,6 +42,10 @@
 import org.glassfish.jersey.test.JerseyTest;
 import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
 import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertNotEquals;
+import jakarta.ws.rs.core.EntityTag;
+import jakarta.ws.rs.core.Variant;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertNotNull;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertTrue;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeEach;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeAll;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
@@ -164,7 +168,96 @@ public void testLocales()
 
         assertNotEquals(langSpecificResp.getEntityTag(), resp.getEntityTag());
     }
-    
+
+    /**
+     * Two requests that select the same language-neutral variant but accept different languages are different
+     * representations - the renderer falls back per value over the whole acceptable list - so they must not share a strong
+     * entity tag. Before the acceptable languages were folded in, "lt" and "de" produced byte-different pages under one ETag,
+     * and a conditional request could be answered 304 with the wrong language.
+     */
+    @Test
+    public void testEntityTagVariesByAcceptableLanguages()
+    {
+        Variant variant = new Variant(com.atomgraph.core.MediaType.APPLICATION_RDF_XML_TYPE, (java.util.Locale) null, null);
+        EntityTag base = new EntityTag("cafe");
+        java.util.function.Predicate<jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType> significant = new RDFXMLMediaTypePredicate();
+
+        EntityTag lt = tagFor(variant, base, significant, List.of(java.util.Locale.forLanguageTag("lt")));
+        EntityTag de = tagFor(variant, base, significant, List.of(java.util.Locale.forLanguageTag("de")));
+        EntityTag alsoLt = tagFor(variant, base, significant, List.of(java.util.Locale.forLanguageTag("lt")));
+
+        assertNotEquals(lt, de);   // different representations, different validators
+        assertEquals(alsoLt, lt);  // same request, stable validator
+
+        // a media type whose rendering does not depend on language is unaffected
+        EntityTag plainLt = tagFor(variant, base, mediaType -> false, List.of(java.util.Locale.forLanguageTag("lt")));
+        EntityTag plainDe = tagFor(variant, base, mediaType -> false, List.of(java.util.Locale.forLanguageTag("de")));
+        assertEquals(plainLt, plainDe);
+
+        // callers that supply no acceptable languages keep the previous entity tag exactly
+        assertEquals(tagFor(variant, base, significant, List.of()), tagFor(variant, base, mediaType -> false, List.of()));
+    }
+
+    /** The entity tag calculation touches no request state, so a stub keeps the test to the thing under test. */
+    private Request getRequestStub()
+    {
+        return new Request()
+        {
+            @Override public String getMethod() { return "GET"; }
+            @Override public Variant selectVariant(List<Variant> variants) { return null; }
+            @Override public jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response.ResponseBuilder evaluatePreconditions(EntityTag eTag) { return null; }
+            @Override public jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response.ResponseBuilder evaluatePreconditions(java.util.Date lastModified) { return null; }
+            @Override public jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response.ResponseBuilder evaluatePreconditions(java.util.Date lastModified, EntityTag eTag) { return null; }
+            @Override public jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response.ResponseBuilder evaluatePreconditions() { return null; }
+        };
+    }
+
+    private EntityTag tagFor(Variant variant, EntityTag base, java.util.function.Predicate<jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType> significant, List<java.util.Locale> acceptable)
+    {
+        return new com.atomgraph.core.model.impl.Response(getRequestStub(), "entity", null, base, variant, significant, acceptable).
+            getVariantEntityTag();
+    }
+
+    // a language-negotiated entity has to advertise Accept-Language as a cache key dimension whether or not one of the
+    // offered languages was acceptable - otherwise a shared cache may serve one language's representation to a client
+    // that asked for another
+    @Test
+    public void testVaryIncludesAcceptLanguage()
+    {
+        jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response acceptable = gsc.getClient().
+                target(uriLang).
+                request(com.atomgraph.core.MediaType.APPLICATION_RDF_XML_TYPE).
+                header(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT_LANGUAGE, Locale.ENGLISH.getLanguage()). // the only language this resource offers
+                get();
+
+        assertEquals(200, acceptable.getStatus());
+        assertNotNull(acceptable.getHeaderString(HttpHeaders.VARY));
+        assertTrue(acceptable.getHeaderString(HttpHeaders.VARY).toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT).contains(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT_LANGUAGE.toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT)));
+
+        // no offered language matches, so the variant falls back to a language-neutral one. The entity was still
+        // negotiated over Accept-Language and its content still depends on it, so the dimension has to survive
+        jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response unacceptable = gsc.getClient().
+                target(uriLang).
+                request(com.atomgraph.core.MediaType.APPLICATION_RDF_XML_TYPE).
+                header(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT_LANGUAGE, Locale.forLanguageTag("lt").getLanguage()).
+                get();
+
+        assertEquals(200, unacceptable.getStatus());
+        assertNotNull(unacceptable.getHeaderString(HttpHeaders.VARY));
+        assertTrue(unacceptable.getHeaderString(HttpHeaders.VARY).toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT).contains(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT_LANGUAGE.toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT)));
+
+        // a multi-entry header, as sent by every real browser, negotiates the same way
+        jakarta.ws.rs.core.Response multiple = gsc.getClient().
+                target(uriLang).
+                request(com.atomgraph.core.MediaType.APPLICATION_RDF_XML_TYPE).
+                header(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT_LANGUAGE, "en-US,en;q=0.9,da;q=0.8,lt;q=0.7").
+                get();
+
+        assertEquals(200, multiple.getStatus());
+        assertNotNull(multiple.getHeaderString(HttpHeaders.VARY));
+        assertTrue(multiple.getHeaderString(HttpHeaders.VARY).toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT).contains(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT_LANGUAGE.toLowerCase(Locale.ROOT)));
+    }
+
     // make Accept-Language/Content-Language significant for RDF/XML (just as a test)
     public static class RDFXMLMediaTypePredicate implements Predicate<MediaType>
     {