Not surprisingly we don't find any elephants in the European chess sets. Rook then really points to the Oriental origins of chess, while medieval northern Europeans put their own interpretations on the other pieces, effectively naturalizing them. In English, we don't speak of a "tower" as Germans and Scandinavians do (although the old-fashioned term "castle" persists among the older generations), but of a "rook" which has no etymological value in English as it is originally a loanword from Persian (meaning "chariot"), via Arabic and French. In French, the bishop is neither a bishop or a runner but a "fou" (fool/jester). Even the Queen is known as a "lady" (and not Königin/drottning, as one might expect). Learn the names, symbols, moves and capture rules of each chess piece, from the pawn to the queen. Pawn and Bauer/bonde have some overlap but are still distinct conceptual entities. So the knight was not a horseman but a "jumper", and the bishop was not a man of the cloth but a "runner". Yet, even the most stylized sets favor the contrasting dark and light color scheme to differentiate the sides. Basic sets include one black set and one white set, but the sets can come in any color or design. Germans (and slightly later presumably Scandinavian speakers, probably mediated via German) must when the game arrived on their shores have seen the pieces of the newly introduced game and associated them with different things than did speakers of English. Chess is performed on a standard chessboard and comes with two complete sets of pieces one for each opponent. It's interesting how the various pieces have been named and conceptualized in different languages. Chinese chess pieces are similar to coins with either the Chinese characters or an image printed on them. Rook: German = Turm "tower" Swedish = torn "tower"Īs you can see, Scandinavian (here represented by Swedish) tends to follow the German model, rather than the English-language one. The objective to take the king/ general remains the same and the pieces are very similar in their name, set up and abilities. Starting out in chess can feel intimidating at first, but the pieces themselves are very simple and once you begin to learn how they move, the game comes together very quickly. Queen: German = Dame "lady" Swedish = dam "lady" Read about the names of every chess piece, including a complete guide to how each piece moves across the board- and how to. Pawn: German = Bauer "farmer, peasant" Swedish = bonde "farmer, peasant" Knight: German = Springer "jumper" Swedish = springare "jumper"īishop: German = Läufer "runner" Swedish = löpare "runner" A manuscript from around the year 1000 contains the first mention of the piece with the name regina (queen), possibly a Byzantine innovation. I can only speak for German and Scandinavian, but, in contrast to English, the names of the following pieces are:
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