Habsburg - Hapsburg

Well, the pronunciation of "Habsburg" is "Hapsburg," because the unvoiced "s" turns the voiced "b" into an unvoiced "p." Why the spelling changed, though, is a mystery. Perhaps because Germans used a different alphabet, English translators may have decided that they were also transliterating as well as translating, and so they were free to change the spelling.

We find the same thing with "Engelbert" and "Englebrecht" and "Albert" and "Albrecht".

Thanks, joe!

I suppose, the German "b" can easily be mistaken for .... even a 'p'.




I was guessing, however, something might have happened around 1861 which led to this change.

Though those names are different here as well. :wink:

It happened to the "pretzel" as well....

Mysterious.

Right ... it MUST be the German "B" and "b"!


But in Chicago ....

Ha! Good find!

It's also worth noting that there are various different spellings (Bretzel, Brezel, Brezl, Breze) in German. What they all have in common is the "B" as a first letter, though.

The Chicago variation rather seems to be a new import to the US (given that what they are selling is the genuine thing, not the mutation otherwise to be found) rather than a reversal to the original spelling.

And you can find some Americans who spell the Habsburgs Habsburgs, after all....

Joe, for instance, is one of them.
(But he's not only from Chicago but nearly an European, too - besides that he's mistaken about how to play cricket.)

I never play with crickets, personally . . . i just step on 'em . . .