diff --git a/includes/theme.inc b/includes/theme.inc
index 6c2b640..bfb8d5a 100644
--- a/includes/theme.inc
+++ b/includes/theme.inc
@@ -2192,8 +2192,15 @@ function template_preprocess_html(&$variables) {
   // RDFa allows annotation of XHTML pages with RDF data, while GRDDL provides
   // mechanisms for extraction of this RDF content via XSLT transformation
   // using an associated GRDDL profile.
-  $variables['rdf_namespaces']    = drupal_get_rdf_namespaces();
-  $variables['grddl_profile']     = 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab';
+  if (module_exists('rdf')) {
+    $variables['rdf_namespaces']    = drupal_get_rdf_namespaces();
+    $variables['grddl_profile']     = 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab';
+    $variables['doctype'] = '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML+RDFa 1.1//EN">' . "\n";
+  } else {
+    $variables['rdf_namespaces'] = '';
+    $variables['grddl_profile'] = '';
+    $variables['doctype'] = '<!DOCTYPE html>' . "\n";
+  }
   $variables['language']          = $GLOBALS['language'];
   $variables['language']->dir     = $GLOBALS['language']->direction ? 'rtl' : 'ltr';
 
diff --git a/modules/system/html.tpl.php b/modules/system/html.tpl.php
index 0e01277..8fa4e24 100644
--- a/modules/system/html.tpl.php
+++ b/modules/system/html.tpl.php
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
  * Drupal page.
  *
  * Variables:
+ * - $doctype: The DOCTYPE of the page based on whether the RDF module is enabled.
  * - $css: An array of CSS files for the current page.
  * - $language: (object) The language the site is being displayed in.
  *   $language->language contains its textual representation.
@@ -40,9 +41,8 @@
  * @see template_preprocess_html()
  * @see template_process()
  */
-?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML+RDFa 1.0//EN"
-  "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-rdfa-1.dtd">
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>" version="XHTML+RDFa 1.0" dir="<?php print $language->dir; ?>"<?php print $rdf_namespaces; ?>>
+?><?php print $doctype; ?>
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="<?php print $language->language; ?>" dir="<?php print $language->dir; ?>"<?php print $rdf_namespaces; ?>>
 
 <head profile="<?php print $grddl_profile; ?>">
   <?php print $head; ?>
