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Aspell version:

$ aspell -v
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.60.6)

Dump dict yields no results:

$ aspell dump dicts

First noticed the problem when I did this, was originally working on web server, but someone updated something and it hasn't worked since:

$ aspell check temp_test_file.txt
Error: No word lists can be found for the language "en_US".

What's the proper way of installing the required dictionaries? I believe we're running this on CentOS.

And also, /usr/lib/aspell-0.60 does not contain the required dictionaries (provided that they're supposed to be saved there).

data-dir: /usr/lib/aspell-0.60

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6 Answers 6

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37

If you've installed pspell/aspell via a package channel, the dictionaries may be available in another package. On CentOS 6 using default yum repositories, English dictionaries are in package aspell-en.

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  • I can confirm this answer is also relevant on CentOS 7 and RHEL 7 (tested both). I should then be valid for aspell on OEL (as derived from centos) and scientific (derived from RHEL).
    – user2066657
    Sep 3, 2018 at 3:34
  • I had to get the epel repo before this worked. Detailed here: theshell.guru/install-aspell-centos-7-2
    – Textcape
    Apr 27, 2020 at 1:46
  • I also use CentOS 7.9. I found in the error message that he ws looking for de.dat ``` /usr/bin/aspell --lang=de --encoding=utf-8 create master /home/MYUSER/.recoll/aspdict.de.rws Fehler: The language "de" is not known. Der Grund ist wahrscheinlich: the file "/usr/lib64/aspell-0.60/de.dat" can not be opened for reading. ``` I had a look, there was not *.dat file. After installing aspell-en there were the english files. No package aspell-de available. So this needs manual installation. You can get dictionaries from ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/dict/0index.html .
    – karsten
    May 17, 2022 at 10:58
  • answer is relevant to manjaro also.
    – Arun Kumar Khattri
    May 17, 2023 at 14:23
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Download dictionaries from here: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/aspell/dict/en/ Unzip it and do,

    ./configure
    make 
    make install

All the instructions are in README. This Makefile will find the correct locations that these dictionaries should go to.

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5

I had same problem on Fedora 22. I solved it by installing aspell-en.x86_64package.

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0

I found that I had file permission errors with the make install step (as per the README instructions from the download above) and couldn't chmod the /sw/share/aspell/ directory. Running sudo make install got around the problem.

Hope that saves someone a headache!

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-1

On macOS, my problem (as per usual) was that I installed it via some method other than Homebrew (brew install aspell and/or brew cask install cocoaspell).

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-2

You need to install en-aspell. In FreeBSD:

pkg install en-aspell

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  • 2
    OP's question was asking how to do this on Linux, not FreeBSD....
    – itsmejoeeey
    May 13, 2015 at 1:14
  • I agree. The package might have a completely different name in Linux, and the name could even vary between Linux distros.
    – jpaugh
    May 13, 2015 at 4:02

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