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enter image description here Can somebody help me with this german word. I have this handwriting in one picture. What is name of place enter image description here

This is found on one picture from my grandfather. He worked in Austria. And this is one place in Austria.

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    Feb 4, 2016 at 20:12

3 Answers 3

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The handwriting is Kurrent and I can recognise the letters as follows:

  1. The first letter is clearly an E.
  2. The second letter is clearly a b.
  3. The third letter is most likely an e. It could also be an n, but those are usually wider.
  4. My best guess on number four is an exotic r, but it could also be an n or even e gone wrong.
  5. Number five is most likely an s. This is noteworthy, as this letter was only used inside of words under special conditions, namely:

    • at the end of non-inflectory morphemes,
    • at the end of a syllable if the following letter was not p, t, or z and the s was not part of a polygraph (like ss or sch).

    What is weird is the long “pause” made before this letter as you would rather make one afterwards sementically, given that it occurs only at the end of something.

  6. The zig-zag lines at the end could be any combination of the following letters with a total of four stems: i, n, m, u, and e, with the latter counting for two stems. One of the letters could be a c (counting one stem) but that’s highly unlikely as this letter rarely occured without being followed by h or k in non-loanwords (which this one seems to be).

    Importantly, the letters i and u are marked by a dot or short stroke placed above the character, which could be the small squiggle in the top right of your picture.

    Finally, it could be that the stroke that descends from the swash of the s does not belong to it but is actually the i dot.

    My best guess is nu but it could also be im and many other things.

This would leave us at something like Ebers-nu or Ebers-im, both of which do not look very German. Without more context, it is impossible to tell you anything more about it.

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  • Could the zigzag line be a (strange) w and could the squiggle be an indicator that the name is abbreviated? "Ebersw" (note the final s!) might be an abbreviation for "Eberswalde".
    – Uwe
    Feb 4, 2016 at 23:15
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    Alternatively: Could the letter following the final s be an a? "Ebersau" is an actual place name.
    – Uwe
    Feb 4, 2016 at 23:19
  • @Uwe: I doubt that your first guess is correct as a Kurrent w almost always ends in some sort of swash – in contrast to a modern w. — As for your second suggestion: It’s unlikely, but possible.
    – Wrzlprmft
    Feb 4, 2016 at 23:30
  • it could get some perspective on the weird "pause". Eber-sau.. just because its old does not mean it could not contain bad puns
    – Bort
    Feb 5, 2016 at 16:55
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    @Matthias Leaving the "a" open at the top is not at all unusual in Kurrent. The strange thing is that there is no trace of an angle in the right half of the letter; it's perfectly rounded, rather than broken. On the other hand, any other candidate letter, such as "u", "i", "n", or "m" should also be angled in some way.
    – Uwe
    Feb 6, 2016 at 23:01
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Ebersau.

Ebersau ist ein Ort im Innviertel von Oberösterreich wie auch eine Ortschaft in der Gemeinde Schildorn im Bezirk Ried im Innkreis.

Der Ortsname Ebersawe ist ein -au-Name. Eine Au ist ein Feuchtgebiet an einem Bach oder Fluss. Es handelte sich also ursprünglich um die Au des Ēbur um 1200. (Dieser Vorname bedeutet Eber.)

z. T. nach:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebersau

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This is the written Text:

Zur Erinnerung
an meine Dienstzeit

an Familie Hörbiger
zu Ebersau

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    I think the second an is rather a von.
    – Matthias
    Feb 6, 2016 at 22:20

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