Peter Beale wrote:
Surely Hannover/Hanover is not a misspelling, but simply the English
version - cf Wien/Vienna and countless others. Admittedly nowadays in
many cases the "native" version is normally used - Brits used to refer
to Coblence, Mayence, Brunswick, Frankfort and the like.
Also, the German spelling of place names has changed over the years: for
instance 19th century signs often use C instead of K. I saw an old sign
referring to Cöln (not Köln) recently, and Coblenz was the usual German
spelling of Koblenz until the 1920s.
And in most cases the soft C in German has changed to Z: now "Zentrum",
formerly "Centrum".
Well-known cities often have different placenames in different
languages: Venezia-Venedig-Venise-Venecia-Veneza-Venetië-Venice for
instance.
And of course there are even alternative language placenames within the
UK (Abertawe-Swansea, Wrecsam-Wrexham, Manchester-Manceinion etc)...
--
Jeremy Double {real address, include nospam}
Rail and transport photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmdoubl...7603834894248/