diff --git a/lib/languages b/lib/languages
index a5bcaeee6f..54be6912a4 100644
--- a/lib/languages
+++ b/lib/languages
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ finnish     finnish	"Finnish"	false  iso8859-15 fi_FI	 ""
 # We redefine \og and \fg (guillemets) for older french language definitions
 french      french 	"French"	false  iso8859-15 fr_FR	 "\addto\extrasfrench{\providecommand{\og}{\leavevmode\flqq~}\providecommand{\fg}{\ifdim\lastskip>\z@\unskip\fi~\frqq}}"
 galician    galician	"Galician"	false  iso8859-15 gl_ES	 ""
-german      german	"German (old spelling)"	false  iso8859-15 de_DE	 ""
+german      german	"German (old spelling)"	false  iso8859-15 de-alt	 ""
 ngerman     ngerman	"German"	false  iso8859-15 de_DE	 ""
 german-ch   ngerman	"German (Switzerland)"	false  iso8859-15 de_CH	 ""
 greek       greek	"Greek"		false  iso8859-7  el_GR	 ""
diff --git a/src/AspellChecker.cpp b/src/AspellChecker.cpp
index 98506b88c4..55441516d7 100644
--- a/src/AspellChecker.cpp
+++ b/src/AspellChecker.cpp
@@ -45,11 +45,17 @@ struct AspellChecker::Private
 
 	~Private();
 
-	/// add a speller of the given language
-	AspellSpeller * addSpeller(string const & lang);
+	/// add a speller of the given language and variety
+	AspellSpeller * addSpeller(string const & lang,
+				   string const & variety = string());
 
 	///
-	AspellSpeller * speller(string const & lang);
+	AspellSpeller * speller(string const & lang,
+				string const & variety);
+
+	/// create a unique ID from lang code and variety
+	string const spellerID(string const & lang,
+			       string const & variety);
 
 	/// the spellers
 	Spellers spellers_;
@@ -77,11 +83,16 @@ AspellChecker::Private::~Private()
 }
 
 
-AspellSpeller * AspellChecker::Private::addSpeller(string const & lang)
+AspellSpeller * AspellChecker::Private::addSpeller(string const & lang,
+						   string const & variety)
 {
 	AspellConfig * config = new_aspell_config();
-	// FIXME The aspell documentation says to use "lang"
-	aspell_config_replace(config, "language-tag", lang.c_str());
+	// Aspell supports both languages and varieties (such as German
+	// old vs. new spelling). The respective naming convention is
+	// lang_REGION-variety (e.g. de_DE-alt).
+	aspell_config_replace(config, "lang", lang.c_str());
+	if (!variety.empty())
+		aspell_config_replace(config, "variety", variety.c_str());
 	// Set the encoding to utf-8.
 	// aspell does also understand "ucs-4", so we would not need a
 	// conversion in theory, but if this is used it expects all
@@ -110,18 +121,28 @@ AspellSpeller * AspellChecker::Private::addSpeller(string const & lang)
 	Speller m;
 	m.speller = to_aspell_speller(err);
 	m.config = config;
-	spellers_[lang] = m;
+	spellers_[spellerID(lang, variety)] = m;
 	return m.speller;
 }
 
 
-AspellSpeller * AspellChecker::Private::speller(string const & lang)
+AspellSpeller * AspellChecker::Private::speller(string const & lang,
+						string const & variety)
 {
-	Spellers::iterator it = spellers_.find(lang);
+	Spellers::iterator it = spellers_.find(spellerID(lang, variety));
 	if (it != spellers_.end())
 		return it->second.speller;
 	
-	return addSpeller(lang);
+	return addSpeller(lang, variety);
+}
+
+
+string const AspellChecker::Private::spellerID(string const & lang,
+					string const & variety)
+{
+	if (variety.empty())
+		return lang;
+	return lang + "-" + variety;
 }
 
 
@@ -138,7 +159,10 @@ AspellChecker::~AspellChecker()
 
 SpellChecker::Result AspellChecker::check(WordLangTuple const & word)
 {
-	AspellSpeller * m = d->speller(word.lang_code());
+  
+	AspellSpeller * m =
+		d->speller(word.lang_code(), word.lang_variety());
+
 	if (!m)
 		return OK;
 
@@ -155,7 +179,8 @@ SpellChecker::Result AspellChecker::check(WordLangTuple const & word)
 
 void AspellChecker::insert(WordLangTuple const & word)
 {
-	Spellers::iterator it = d->spellers_.find(word.lang_code());
+	Spellers::iterator it = d->spellers_.find(
+		d->spellerID(word.lang_code(), word.lang_variety()));
 	if (it != d->spellers_.end())
 		aspell_speller_add_to_personal(it->second.speller, to_utf8(word.word()).c_str(), -1);
 }
@@ -163,7 +188,8 @@ void AspellChecker::insert(WordLangTuple const & word)
 
 void AspellChecker::accept(WordLangTuple const & word)
 {
-	Spellers::iterator it = d->spellers_.find(word.lang_code());
+	Spellers::iterator it = d->spellers_.find(
+		d->spellerID(word.lang_code(), word.lang_variety()));
 	if (it != d->spellers_.end())
 		aspell_speller_add_to_session(it->second.speller, to_utf8(word.word()).c_str(), -1);
 }
@@ -173,7 +199,9 @@ void AspellChecker::suggest(WordLangTuple const & wl,
 	docstring_list & suggestions)
 {
 	suggestions.clear();
-	AspellSpeller * m = d->speller(wl.lang_code());
+	AspellSpeller * m =
+		d->speller(wl.lang_code(), wl.lang_variety());
+
 	if (!m)
 		return;
 
diff --git a/src/Language.cpp b/src/Language.cpp
index 2093bc373c..1ff2cf7189 100644
--- a/src/Language.cpp
+++ b/src/Language.cpp
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 
 #include "support/debug.h"
 #include "support/FileName.h"
+#include "support/lstrings.h"
 
 using namespace std;
 using namespace lyx::support;
@@ -44,11 +45,13 @@ bool Language::read(Lexer & lex)
 	lex >> display_;
 	lex >> rightToLeft_;
 	lex >> encodingStr_;
-	lex >> code_;
+	lex >> codeStr_;
 	lex >> latex_options_;
 	if (!lex)
 		return false;
 
+	variety_ = split(codeStr_, code_, '-');
+
 	encoding_ = encodings.fromLyXName(encodingStr_);
 	if (!encoding_ && !encodingStr_.empty()) {
 		encoding_ = encodings.fromLyXName("iso8859-1");
diff --git a/src/Language.h b/src/Language.h
index 14700710b7..9e89f367b6 100644
--- a/src/Language.h
+++ b/src/Language.h
@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ public:
 	///
 	std::string const & code() const { return code_; }
 	///
+	std::string const & variety() const { return variety_; }
+	///
 	std::string const & latex_options() const { return latex_options_; }
 	///
 	bool internalFontEncoding() const;
@@ -67,8 +69,12 @@ private:
 	///
 	Encoding const * encoding_;
 	///
+	std::string codeStr_;
+	///
 	std::string code_;
 	///
+	std::string variety_;
+	///
 	std::string latex_options_;
 };
 
diff --git a/src/Paragraph.cpp b/src/Paragraph.cpp
index abee04a727..c357fcda2b 100644
--- a/src/Paragraph.cpp
+++ b/src/Paragraph.cpp
@@ -3131,10 +3131,17 @@ bool Paragraph::spellCheck(pos_type & from, pos_type & to, WordLangTuple & wl,
 		return false;
 
 	docstring word = asString(from, to, AS_STR_INSETS);
-	string const lang_code = lyxrc.spellchecker_alt_lang.empty()
-		? getFontSettings(d->inset_owner_->buffer().params(), from).language()->code()
-		: lyxrc.spellchecker_alt_lang;
-	wl = WordLangTuple(word, lang_code);
+	string lang_code;
+	string lang_variety;
+	if (!lyxrc.spellchecker_alt_lang.empty())
+		lang_variety = split(lyxrc.spellchecker_alt_lang, lang_code, '-');
+	else {
+	      lang_code = getFontSettings(
+		    d->inset_owner_->buffer().params(), from).language()->code();
+	      lang_variety = getFontSettings(
+		    d->inset_owner_->buffer().params(), from).language()->variety();
+	}
+	wl = WordLangTuple(word, lang_code, lang_variety);
 	SpellChecker::Result res = speller->check(wl);
 	// Just ignore any error that the spellchecker reports.
 	// FIXME: we should through out an exception and catch it in the GUI to
diff --git a/src/WordLangTuple.h b/src/WordLangTuple.h
index b1a31bd90d..4802c2fb55 100644
--- a/src/WordLangTuple.h
+++ b/src/WordLangTuple.h
@@ -19,15 +19,17 @@ namespace lyx {
 
 
 /**
- * A word and its given language code ("en_US").
+ * A word and its given language code ("en_US")
+ * plus a variety if needed.
  * This is used for spellchecking.
  */
 class WordLangTuple {
 public:
 	WordLangTuple() {}
 
-	WordLangTuple(docstring const & w, std::string const & c)
-		: word_(w), code_(c)
+	WordLangTuple(docstring const & w, std::string const & c,
+		      std::string const & v = std::string())
+		: word_(w), code_(c), variety_(v)
 	{}
 
 	/// return the word
@@ -40,11 +42,18 @@ public:
 		return code_;
 	}
 
+	/// return the language variety
+	std::string const & lang_variety() const {
+		return variety_;
+	}
+
 private:
 	/// the word
 	docstring word_;
 	/// language code of word
 	std::string code_;
+	/// language variety of word
+	std::string variety_;
 };