Canetti was descended from Spanish Sephardic Jews. He wrote in German, his third language, his first two being Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) and English. He learned the latter when his parents settled in England. After his father's death in 1913, he moved with his mother to Vienna. He was educated in Z?rich, Frankfurt, and Vienna, receiving a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Vienna in 1929.

Ispagja deka Enciklopedija Britanika voopsto Bugarskiot ne go racuna kako eden od negovite jazici. So much for him being a Bulgarian