I’ve had this debate many times, seen many different answers and been yelled at by many different people. But I do not believe I have seen anything difinitive…Though the Initiative Group Königstein in Germany quite deserves a look as they are a group of chess historians searching for the truth, and in my opinion one of the more reputable orgs.
Anyone care to jabber a guess, or give some factoid that may sway into one school or another?
I’ve heard both.
The phrase “checkmate” is from the Arabic “Shah maat” - “the king is dead.”
The origin of chess pie is also muddled.
I heard Persian.
It depends also on what game that resembles chess that you care to say started it. I’d imagine that several similar games have evolved in many situations and influenced each other perhaps.
I used to live one town over from Königstein, I wished I’d known there was a chess club, one of them could have taught me how to play (better). And I’d also heard Persian, but what is the actual evidence? This isn’t IMHO, you know.
Thats the problem, lack of evidence. That’s what we need here!
From The Oxford History of Board Games:
So, basically, modern western chess is a direct descendent of the Indian game.
The relationship between the Indian game and Chinese chess is more obscure. The Oxford Guide comes down on the side of the Chinese borrowing from the Indians, or possibly both drawing from some earlier unknown game. There’s no evidence that the Indians borrowed from the Chinese.
The main evidence for an Indian origin for Chinese chess:
The earliest unequivocable reference to Chinese chess in writing dates from around AD 800, roughly 200 years after the earliest evidence for Indian chess.
China has historically never claimed the invention of chess for itself, and has acknowledged India as the source of another game (Chaupur) thus establishing a cultural precendent.
What an interesting question…I guess that means rooks, knights, bishops, etc weren’t the original names of the pieces? Are there Indian Bishops or Chinese knights?
I think they were elephants and camels at one point. Also the Queen was Vizor. In the old days, the Church wanted to ban chess-- as gambling I guess (as has Islam in various times, including not long ago in Iran, a ban since lifted), so I think the adpation of bishop, knights, etc. was an attempt to add medieval flare and religious acceptance to the game as allegorical.
The games that were played before the modern era had different rules and boards, however. I think larger boards were common, and Shantraj had very different rules of movement and capture. But still recognizable. People always want to invent a tradition and history of everything, it’s possible that chess-like games evolved in many places in a fashion less recognizable and then the each were repopularized as versions met up with each other over the centuries.
I wonder when the modern rules were finalized on pieces, board size and movement? Is en passant, pawn promotion and castling all relatively “new”?
also this topic is often discussed at http://chess.about.com but people get rather heated on the topic sometimes…
Reconstructions suggest the original Indian pieces were:
King --> Rajah
Minister --> Mantri
Elephant --> Hasty
Horse --> Ashwa
Chariot --> Ratha
Pawn --> Padati
For Chinese chess:
General --> Jiang or Shuai
Mandarin --> Shi
Elephant --> Xiang
Horse --> Ma
Chariot --> Ju
Cannon --> Piao
Soldier --> Zu or Bing
Yes; both were to speed up the game (en passant indirectly speeds up the game, in that is allows the first move of a pawn to be two moves, without allowing the pawn to skip being vulnerable to capture).
Whoops - missed pawn promotion - that is not new. Soldiers got promoted to vizors lo these many years ago.
Castling and en passant are only in modern chess.
I’ve heard the same from Russians - the Russian word for chess is shakhmaty - except that the Russian who told me this story said the word was of Persian origin, not Arabic. I don’t speak either Persian or Arabic, so I can’t say one way or another, but I do speak 4 Indo-European languages, and the word feels rather Indo-European to me, which would pretty much rule out Arabic.
What this means in the end for the origin of the game, I couldn’t begin to tell you.
We haven’t got evidence like a diary (Bombay 450 AD - today I invented a board game…), just historical pieces and boards that are chess-like.
A History of Chess (Murray, Oxford University Press, 1913) is satisfied that chess comes from India, and probably reached Europe via Persia (Iran).
‘Shah mat’ (I think that’s the spelling) means ‘the King is dead’ in persian.
‘Rukh’ means ‘chariot’ in Persian. The modern Western name for a rook would probably be ‘castle’ or ‘tower’, so you can see how the theory arose.
I can’t remember when all the current moves came in - certainly rooks and knights have always been the same.
The queen used to be a firzan in Arabic chess (Shatranj) and moved one square diagonally. The bishop was a fils (or alfils) and was very limited. No castling; pawns moved 1 square only.
I would estimate it was in the 1400s when the Italians brought in the modern versions of these pieces.
Here’s a fun read on the issue: http://www.chessvariants.com/