Deutsch homophones

aalen/Ahlen/allen

"aalen" is a verb; "Ahlen" is a name - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #5 of 483 German groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "aalen" arrives as a verb, while "Ahlen" is a name. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • No shared spelling stem: "aalen" is 5 letters, "Ahlen" is 5; only the sound ties them.
  • No shared spelling stem: "aalen" is 5 letters, "allen" is 5; only the sound ties them.
  • No shared spelling stem: "Ahlen" is 5 letters, "allen" is 5; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across aalen, Ahlen, allen: aeln. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • aalen

    5 letters · 3 vowels · shape VVCVC

    Inventory aeln · no private letters vs siblings

  • Ahlen

    5 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCCVC

    Inventory aehln · private h

  • allen

    5 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCCVC

    Inventory aeln · no private letters vs siblings

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "aalen" when you mean: sich ausstrecken, (zum Beispiel im Bett, in der Sonne, am Strand) faulenzen
  • Write "Ahlen" when you mean: Stadt in Nordrhein-Westfalen im Regierungsbezirk Münster
  • Write "allen" when you mean: Dativ Plural des Indefinitpronomens all

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • aalenaaeln · aalenn · aallen · aalne · alaen
  • Ahlenaheln · ahhlen · ahlenn · ahlne · alhen
  • allenaleln · alen · allenn · allne · lalen

Each spelling

aalen

verb · /ˈaːlən/ · #11,801 frequency

sich ausstrecken, (zum Beispiel im Bett, in der Sonne, am Strand) faulenzen

Ahlen

name · /ˈaːlən/ · #28,504 frequency

Stadt in Nordrhein-Westfalen im Regierungsbezirk Münster

allen

unknown · /ˈalən/ · #276 frequency

Dativ Plural des Indefinitpronomens all

Nearby German homophone groups

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list