Altspelling

Altspelling, or alternative spelling, refers to any of several spellings used for the same word or proper name. It is a phenomenon observed across languages and writing systems, arising from historical pronunciation shifts, orthographic reform, dialectal variation, loanword adaptation, and transliteration from non-Latin scripts. In English, common examples include color/colour, center/centre, theater/theatre, analyze/analyse, and defense/defence. Names also exhibit alt spellings, such as Mohammed/Muhammad, Catherine/Katherine, or John/Jon, reflecting cultural, religious, or legal conventions.

In linguistics, alt spellings document variation rather than a single, fixed form. They inform lexicography, dialect geography, and historical linguistics. In computing and information retrieval, handling alt spellings is important for search, indexing, spell checking, and data normalization. Techniques include canonicalization, phonetic matching, and approximate string matching, as well as transliteration standards for non-Latin scripts. In publishing and education, awareness of alt spellings helps accommodate readers and learners, and reduces ambiguity in cross-cultural contexts.

Variation may be intentional (stylized branding) or conventional (regional or historical norms). While standardization aims for consistency, alt spellings persist, sometimes due to user preference or long-established tradition. See orthography, spelling variation, transliteration, and lexicography for related topics.