Allophony describes multiple pronunciations of a spelling, while free variation describes multiple spellings of a sound
the verdict
INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
2 sources for · 0 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
The retrieved sources provide definitions for allophony as phonetic variations of a phoneme, but contain no evidence addressing free variation as multiple spellings of a sound.
Allophone | Dialects, Accents, Variants | Britannica
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allophone, one of the phonetically distinct variants of a phoneme(q.v.). The occurrence of one allophone rather than another is usually determined by its position in the word (initial, final, medial, etc.) or by its phonetic environment. Speakers of a language often have difficulty in hearing the phonetic differences between allophones of the same phoneme, because these differences do not serve to distinguish one word from another. In English the t sounds in the words “hit,” “tip,” and “little” are allophones; phonemically they are considered to be the same sound although they are different phonetically in terms of aspiration, voicing, and point of arti