4 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfil "It was used in standard chess before being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th

by kgwgk 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfil "It was used in standard chess before being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries. [...] The alfil is a very old piece, appearing in some very early chess variants, such as Tamerlane chess and shatranj. It was originally called an elephant, hastīn or gāja in Sanskrit. [...] When chess spread to China, the piece became the elephant in xiangqi. [...] When chess came to Persia from India, the Sanskrit name was translated to pil, and when chess came to the Muslims from Persia, the move had not changed, and then the name changed into Arabic to fil, the already existing cognate to pil which comes from the Akkadian language and ultimately from the Egyptian language. The name thus became fil and then alfil (prefixing the Arabic definite article, al)."

fakedang 4y ago
Fairy chess doesn't count though.
- kgwgk 4y ago
  "It was used in standard chess before being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries." The bishop is a modern European invention. > In Hindi, Persian and Arabic variations of the game, the bishop piece was... There was no bishop in traditional Hindi, Persian and Arabic variations. There was an elephant though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess)#History "The bishop's predecessor in medieval chess, shatranj (originally chaturanga), was the alfil, meaning "elephant", which could leap two squares along any diagonal, and could jump over an intervening piece."
  - teo_zero 4y ago
    > being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries. > The bishop is a modern European invention. Actually the Atlas Obscura article shows that only a small portion of Europe adopted bishop. I often consider the English version of Wikipedia as the "universal" one, but this remembers me that it's likely to be biased, instead.
    - kgwgk 4y ago
      The pieces are mainly defined by their movement - not by their name or shape. "[A piece that jumps two squares diagonally, leaping over any intermediate piece] was used in standard chess before being replaced by [a piece that moves along diagonals without jumping over intervening pieces] in the 15th and 16th centuries." Of course whether the name changed or not is relevant for the structure of the wikipedia entries and impacts the degree of detail about the historical evolution. By the way the English entry for "bishop" also mentions that the elephant-linked naming remains in some languages (and has a table of names/translations in 72 languages with 17 elephants in it): "Derivatives of alfil survive in the languages of the two countries where chess was first introduced within Western Europe—Italian (alfiere) and Spanish (alfil) [...] In some Slavic languages (e.g. Czech/Slovak) the bishop is called [...] while in others it is still known as "elephant" (e.g. Russian slon)."

by kgwgk 4y ago

fakedang 4y ago

Fairy chess doesn't count though.

kgwgk 4y ago
"It was used in standard chess before being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries." The bishop is a modern European invention. > In Hindi, Persian and Arabic variations of the game, the bishop piece was... There was no bishop in traditional Hindi, Persian and Arabic variations. There was an elephant though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(chess)#History "The bishop's predecessor in medieval chess, shatranj (originally chaturanga), was the alfil, meaning "elephant", which could leap two squares along any diagonal, and could jump over an intervening piece."
- teo_zero 4y ago
  > being replaced by the bishop in the 15th and 16th centuries. > The bishop is a modern European invention. Actually the Atlas Obscura article shows that only a small portion of Europe adopted bishop. I often consider the English version of Wikipedia as the "universal" one, but this remembers me that it's likely to be biased, instead.
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    The pieces are mainly defined by their movement - not by their name or shape. "[A piece that jumps two squares diagonally, leaping over any intermediate piece] was used in standard chess before being replaced by [a piece that moves along diagonals without jumping over intervening pieces] in the 15th and 16th centuries." Of course whether the name changed or not is relevant for the structure of the wikipedia entries and impacts the degree of detail about the historical evolution. By the way the English entry for "bishop" also mentions that the elephant-linked naming remains in some languages (and has a table of names/translations in 72 languages with 17 elephants in it): "Derivatives of alfil survive in the languages of the two countries where chess was first introduced within Western Europe—Italian (alfiere) and Spanish (alfil) [...] In some Slavic languages (e.g. Czech/Slovak) the bishop is called [...] while in others it is still known as "elephant" (e.g. Russian slon)."