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Working-With-Dictionaries.html#Working-With-DictionariesWorking With Dictionaries 5.2 How Aspell Selects an Appropriate Dictionary
If the master option is set in any fashion (via the command
line, the 
ASPELL_CONF environment variable, or a configuration
file) Aspell will look for a dictionary of that name.  If one could
not be found, it will complain.
   
Otherwise it will use the value of the lang option to search
for an appropriate dictionary.  If more than one dictionary is found
for the given language string then it will look for a dictionary with
a matching variety if the 
variety option is set.  If it is not
set it will look for a dictionary without a variety.  If after matching
the 
lang and variety there is still more than one
dictionary available it will find one with the size closest to the
value of the 
size option.  The default size is 60.  If Aspell
cannot find a dictionary based on the 
lang option then it
will give up and complain.
   
If the lang option is not explicitly set its value will be
based on the 
LC_MESSAGES locale.  This locale is generally taken
from the 
LC_MESSAGES environment variable or the LANGenvironment variable if 
LC_MESSAGES is not set.  However, if
Aspell is being used as a library from within another program which
already explicitly set the locale then it will use the locale of the
library rather than the environment variables.  If Aspell cannot
determine the language from the 
LC_MESSAGES locale than it will
default to 
en_US.
   
The list option dict-alias can be used to influence which dictionary
is selected by creating an alias from one dictionary name to another. 
This option is most useful when there is more than one dictionary for a
given language.  For example `
add-dict-alias en_US en_US-w_accents'
will cause Aspell to choose the accented version of the American English
dictionary instead of the non-accented version.  To add an alias use:
     add-dict-alias NAME VAL   
