Shatranj, the predecessor of modern chess | Hacker News Reader

Shatranj, the predecessor of modern chess

en.wikipedia.org

47 pointsdiodorus10 comments

If you read onward, to according to chess historians Gerhard Josten and Isaak Linder, "the early beginnings" of chess can be traced [still further] back to the Kushan Empire in Ancient Afghanistan, circa 50 BCE–200 CE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire

The Kushan were a possibly Iranian or Tocharian, Indo-European nomadic people who had migrated from the Tarim Basin and settled in ancient Bactria. These are the same people as the famous tartan-wearing Tarim Mummies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies (text) and https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=tarim%20mummi... (images)

Note the grid layout of the tartan. I wonder if there are any art history papers on hypothesized sacred geometries of early, pre-Islamic Central Asia? (We know that, for example, by 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (present-day Pakistan), were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets.)

(Edit in response to below: Read onward, ie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess#Origin ... nobody is disputing chaturanga, the above refers to the pre-chaturanga origins of chess-like games.)

Chess is widely believed and acknowledged by many to have orignated in India ("Chaturanga").

See The Chess Variants Pages (http://www.chessvariants.org) for other historic chess variants, such as chaturanga (the original), Tamerlane chess (like shatranj with extra pieces and a larger board), and Byzantine chess (played on a cicular board!).

Very interesting ... since I'm part Welsh, I was interested in the history of that country and found that a similar game called Gwyddbwyll was adopted from the Viking game of Hnefatafl (Tafl can be used to describe a whole series of "table games"). It's interesting to note that the second link below describes these games as being overtaken by Chess (which the vikings called Skak-Tafl).

[1] http://celtnet.org.uk/miscellaneous/gwyddbwyll.html

[2] http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Hnef.html

modern chess is still called shatranj in arabic & farsi

At the risk of stating the obvious, the Persian etymology is far older (ie. Arabic [word] derives from Persian [word]) since Islam and Arabic [as a coherent linguistic and cultural force] didn't exist until many hundreds of years later.

Can any competent Persian readers consult Persian language sources to determine an Iranian take on the etymology of the word? Wiktionary at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shatranj states the following etymology for the modern English loan word: "From Arabic شطرنج (šaṭranj), from Persian شترنگ (šatrang), from Middle Persian ctlng (čatrang), from Sanskrit चतुरङ्ग (čaturaṅga)."

(Edit: 1. Arabic does not derive from Farsi .. (Obviously) I was referring to the Arabic word in this case being a loan-word from Persian. 2. Arabic was written before farsi was An interesting tangent... it seems you are correct if limited examples of pre-standardized Arab-region languages written in pre-Arabic scripts are considered, which were allegedly circa 0CE written in Aramaic ... but {{citation-needed}} on relevance to anything at all, really.) ... TLDR; Arabic as a cultural or linguistic force appears to begin with Islam, ie. far later, whereas Persian had weight far earlier, ie. in the period under discussion.)

As to this specific word, I do not know where it originated. However, Arabic does not derive from Farsi and Islam did not introduce Arabic. Arabic was written before farsi was(~800 BC vs ~600 BC), but the languages are much older.

Also, Farsi and Arabic have different roots. Farsi did not start using the Arabic alphabet until ~700 AD. Modern Farsi does have a lot of Arabic words used because of Islam.

Quick note, Persian is the proper and historical name of "Farsi" in English. Farsi is the local name (and what most Persian speaking people call their language in their own language), much like "French" vs "Français" in English. To be pedantic, it is improper to say "I speak Français", rather one should say "I speak French".

> from Sanskrit चतुरङ्ग (čaturaṅga)

chatur-anga = four limbs (or perhaps four body parts, I'm not sure)

And Hindi. Nobody uses the original "chaturang" form. I never even knew this was the origin of the word shatranj until I saw this wikipedia page.

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