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). Compared to other chess pieces, the knights movement is unique: it moves two squares vertically and one square horizontally, or two squares horizontally and one square vertically (with both forming the shape of a capital L).Consequently, a knight alternates between light and dark squares with each move. Even the Queen is known as a 'lady' (and not Königin/drottning, as one might expect). 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'. 3 The journalist Nathaniel Cooke is credited with the design on the patent, and they are named after the leading English chess master Howard Staunton, who endorsed it 2 the first 500 sets were.

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. The Staunton chess set is the standard style of chess pieces, recommended for use in competition by FIDE, the international chess governing body. It's interesting how the various pieces have been named and conceptualized in different languages. 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. Queen: German = Dame 'lady' Swedish = dam 'lady' Pawn: German = Bauer 'farmer, peasant' Swedish = bonde 'farmer, peasant' Handmade Marble Chess Set, The Queens Gambit, Chess Piece Names, Harmon Chess, Borgov Chess, Gotham Chess, Chess Players Shout Crossword Clue Height, 0.8. The chess pieces are designed in a variety of styles. There are 16 chess pieces on each side including one king, one queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight pawns, making a total of 32 chess pieces in all. Knight: German = Springer 'jumper' Swedish = springare 'jumper'īishop: German = Läufer 'runner' Swedish = löpare 'runner' In a standard game of chess, there are six different types of chess pieces namely king, queen, bishop, knight, rook, and pawn. I can only speak for German and Scandinavian, but, in contrast to English, the names of the following pieces are:

Original names of chess pieces