In the Spelling Bee today, (spoilered, for other SB solvers out there) ambiance and ambience are included. They are both correct spellings of the same word. I’m trying to think of something equivalent in my limited knowledge of German and my more limited knowledge of Spanish, but I’m coming up blank.
Do other languages do that? The same word, meaning the same thing, spelled slightly differently, both correct?
With English, naturally, there are a plethora of words spelled differently in British and American versions. Americans love to droop the “U” in assorted words, like “labour”, unlike their neighbours to the North and across the pond. I also wonder at the use of “cheque” and “check” to mean the same thing.
I wonder if something like Spanish, also spoken widely across the world, has a similar geographical issue?
Spanish allows both wiski and güisqui — as well as wholly borrowed whisky and whiskey.
English has a huge vocabulary compared to many languages, with many dialect variants and loan words from other languages that may overlap except for spelling. Lots of synonyms, lots of words that are almost the same.
A few for French, though I think a French speaker would need to verify:
aillolli & aïoli (English “aioli”)
bistro & bistrot
cacahuète & cacahouète (English “peanut”)
paye & paie (English “pay, salary”)
gray and grey
Do umlauted vowels turning into vowel+”e” in German count?
That is not a variant spelling, though. More like… a font difference? Like writing æther instead of aether?
I am not completely sure what to make of Mass for Maß, though.
That’s the same thing. “ss” is how you spell “ß” when the “ß” character isn’t available.
Oh, yes, plenty!
Spanish: yerba = hierba (grass), Yedra = hiedra (ivy), Mayonesa = mahonesa. quizá = quizás (perhaps, maybe). Many words used to be written with “bs”, like obscuro (dark), substancia (substance), or with “pt” like séptimo (seventh) or septiembre (september) or with “ps” like psicología, psicólogo, pseudónimo can now skip the p or the b: oscuro, sustancia, sétimo, sicología, seudónimo. Armonía can be written both with and without “h”: harmonía, as can harpa: arpa (harp).
German: I found a webpage with a list of double spellings, both correct. It’s mostly writing one or two words, capitalizing them or not, quite boring. Some are either French “cou” like Coupon or Cousine vs. German “Ku” (Kupon, Kusine), or Canapé vs Kanapee, Nugat vs. Nougat. Some words can be written both with a “ph” or an “f”: Fantasie, Fotographie. There is also Monoxid vs Monoxyd. Meh. Zaziki vs. Tsatsiki.
What really confuses me are words in different languages that are written differently, one of the worst is carousel (one r, one s, one l), German Karussell (one r, two s, two l), French carrousel (two r, one s, one l), Italian carosello (one r, one s, two ll, also called giostra), Spanish carrusel (like French, but with an u instead of an ou, also called tiovivo). Makes me look it up every time I write it, never mind in which language. There are plenty of those.
It may not have escaped your attention that in general I like to write the words the way I find nice to look at, damned be the orthography!
Kids today like the drooping “U”, but adults think it looks silly and needs to be pulled up.
I still have trouble decided whether to run amok or run amuck.
In French, I’ve seen “clef” and “clé” as alternate spellings. (“Key”)
Repost below – ruined edit
In Canadian French, is the “f” in “clef” silent?
Yes, same pronunciation. “Clé” has been proposed as a modern spelling. I don’t know if it’s caught on.
Wow! Thanks! I guess this is at least one example where English spelling isn’t uniquely weird and terrible.
Not really.
I’ve never seen or read of the latter spelling as real or correct. IMO that’s just somebody spelling phonetically (and badly) a word they’ve only heard, never read. Like “all intensive purposes”, it’s simply a mistake. A plausible mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
Going back to the OP, I disagree that “ambiance” and “ambience” are alternate spellings of the same word. I’m not enough of a linguist to explain it properly or thoroughly but IMO, like “affect” and “effect”, they are different words representing different parts of speech carrying different (but closely allied) meanings.
Further regarding French:
Are there any h-initial Germanic borrowings in modern French that can be alternately spelled with or without the initial “h”?
Are there any ck-final (or k-final) Germanic borrowings in modern French that can be alternately spelled with final “-ck/-k” or “-que”?
That’s hard to support via a cursory search of dictionary entries. But language changes all the time, and there are perhaps some idiolects that make a distinction. As for cites:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ambience#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ambiance#English
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ambience