I am interested in knowing what chess men are called in your language !
My native language is Arabic. King is King, Queen is Minister, Bishop is Elephant (dunno why) , Knight is Horse and Rook is Tabya (doesn't mean anything). Check is 'Kesh' which is the imperative form of 'Hide' (you have to 'hide' your king') and Checkmate is 'Mat' which literally means 'He's dead'
So, what do you call all of these in your language, and what do they mean ?
I'm italian.
Rook= torre (which would be 'tower' in english)
Knight= cavallo (horse)
Bishop= alfiere (normal translation)
King= re (normal translation)
Queen= regina (normal translation)
Pawn= pedone (normal translation)
Check= scacco
Check mate= scacco matto (literally 'mad check')
الغراب - surely that's a tower?
One of my favourites is the Finnish for bishop: lähetti (messenger), and in Hebrew it's רץ (runner) :)
In Dutch, we call bishops walkers (lopers).
In Norway bishop = løper and knight = springer. Both mean runner
@lovlas: I think the origin of “springer” in this context is the old meaning of 'springe', ie., jump or bounce. Some commentators on tv have actually switched to hest – that is ‘horse’ – to make the comments easier to follow for people who watch the World Championship without much knowledge of chess. That is funny, because calling knights a ‘hest’ used to be a surefire way to identify a patzer, and sounds childish to most experienced players.
That makes sense. Some kids came up with the genius name "skr¨åløper" which means diagonal runner. It made it much easier for them to remember which piece did what.
@sigvei "Springer" is adopted from German. The German word "Springer" literally translates to "Knight" :)
In Serbian
King is "Kralj" (king)
Queen is "Dama" (lady)
Bishop is "Lovac" (hunter)
Knight is "Skakac" (jumper) or in lame terms Konj (horse)
Rook is "Top" (cannon)
Pawn is "Piun" (pawn)
And we have a funny saying when someone puts his knight in front of others king, that it is an insult. Because you dont bring a horse in front of a king. :D
In German :
King=King
Queen=Lady
Rook=Tower
Knight=Jumper
Bishop=Runner
Pawn=Farmer/Peasant
