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From	Message
zorroloco 04-May-07, 09:18	chess trivia in spanish, the bishop is called 'el alfil.' none of my spanish speaking friends could tell me what 'alfil' means. i could have looked it up, but was too lazy. i am reading a book now called "birth of the chess queen' by marilyn yalom. she traces the history of chess with an eye to the creation and development of the queen. now, you may know that chess originated in india or persia (they are not sure). in its nascent stages, the pieces were different (ie. king, vizier, elephant, etc). when chess moved to the arab world due to the islamic conquest of india, they adopted chess. when they conquered iberia, chess moved to europe. now, it turns out that, as i learned in my arabic class, in arabic, elephant is said, 'fil,' or 'al fil' meaning, 'the elephant.' so, in spain, where the arabic influence was/is strong, when the elephant, over time evolved into the bishop (as the church became more powerful and the bishop sat next to the king), they retained the arabic name, and the bishop, to this day, is called 'el alfil' rather than the spanish word for bishop which is obispo. also a bit amusing is that 'el alfil' really means 'the the elephant' cool, huh?
saintinsanity 04-May-07, 09:25	Wasn't this all in JC Hallman's book that we read for book club?
zorroloco 04-May-07, 09:26	i do not recall him talking about el alfil and the derivation of that name.
proginoskes 04-May-07, 13:47	I had the chance to play chess with an exchange student from Thailand, they have entirely different moves from European chess.
anomalocaris 04-May-07, 13:52	so it was originally a democrat?
saintinsanity 04-May-07, 16:14	I remember that Do you still have the book? I'm sure it's in there.
bobbynox 05-May-07, 06:48	Hmmm, Yes, Pawn you are correct. This was covered in Hallman's book. I am concerned that Jeff's memory is fading abit due to the toxic buildup of THC. What other impairments should we be looking for? Slurred speech? Hair falling out? Upper respirtory infections?
captaingoodvibes 05-May-07, 17:24	to save me searching back, what WAS Hallmans book?
saintinsanity 05-May-07, 19:29	the chess artist It was pretty good. Without looking at a board!! What color is the c5 square?
qiwi 06-May-07, 04:26	What colour is the square c5? Assuming we are talking about a chess board....black.
saintinsanity 06-May-07, 05:16	Is there any other board? Of course there isn't.
qiwi 06-May-07, 05:26	sounds like....... Following the introduction of chess to Europe the arabic names were often replaced with words that sounded similar... for example the italians replaced 'alfil' with 'alfiere' which meant 'flag-bearer'..... the French began calling it 'delfino', which suggested 'dauphin', the French crown prince. The French also played on the similarity in sound between 'fil' and 'fol' (meaning jester or fool). Apparently it was the English who gave it the new title of 'bishop'. This was because the original design of the piece had two projections at the top that were supposed to represent an elephant's tusks which the english re-interpteted as a Bishop's mitre.....

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