M-$ or ispell-word works by default but C-M-i or ispell-complete-word fails. Steps to reproduce the error - emacs -Q - C-x b xxx - M-x text-mode + - type "ju" - C-M-i ;;=> causes the echo area to say the following > ispell-lookup-words: lookup-words error: No plain word-list found at > systemdefault locations. Customize ‘ispell-alternate-dictionary’ to > set yours. The unexpected behavior is the above error shown in the *Messages* buffer. The expected behavior is similar to the result from M-$ or ispell-word providing a list of options to choose. A workaround I have found is as follows - at the shell command line - $ aspell -l en dump master > en-word-list - $ sort en-word-list > en-sorted-word-list + - customize:ispell-complete-word-dict to read the file "path/to/en-sorted-word-list" - C-M-i on "ju" then generates a listing of word options See attached file bug-gnu-emacs--report.text