Stefan Buecker wrote on 07/13/11 at 16:57:26:

Zeitnot and Zugzwang are widely used here in Bulgaria too.. In fact, we don't have other useful words to describe these two situations.
Our chess lexicon is very mixed. For example, we use "debut" for opening but Mittelspiel and Endspiel for the next stages of the game.
Edit: And besides, we use "chess party" instead of "chess game". Some of the opening names here are: Spanish Party (if you say "Ruy Lopez" no one will know what it's all about), Russian Party (Petroff is unknown here), Italian Party (the same is with Giuoco Piano)..
As for the pieces, we use: Tzar (King), Tzaritsa (Queen), Top (Cannon) - rook, Officer (Bishop), Kon (Horse), Peshka (Pedestrian) - pawn. Very, very mixed lexicon - we use "en passant", but in the same time "endspiel"...and "peshka", while "Top" (cannon) for rook is pure Bulgarian. Four different languages!.. And if I try to think some more about it - who knows, maybe we use some English or Italian words, too..

Zwischenzugzwang wrote on 07/01/11 at 09:43:01:

Hello Oliver / Zwischenzugzwang,

I am inclined to think that the German term "Rochade" does have some chess-unrelated meaning: (a) in soccer; (b) and more important: in the political/business sphere, when members of the "elite" are changing [job] places. Often in a context of backstage deals, nepotism, saving faces etc. 

A Google tool is useful to check whether chess terms are leaking into the public sphere: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Remis%2CPatt%2CRochade%2CUnentschiede...;



Anyway, the term "Patt" [stalemate] obviously leaked into politics in the Cold War era. And it was useful enough to remain in use afterwards. The term "Remis" has become quite common in sports in general, but it seems that recently the equivalent (but not chess-specific) word "Unentschieden" [literally: undecided] is increasing its market share. 

"Rochade" is used more often in recent decades, which seems to support my opinion above. But I have no explanation for the spike of "Rochade" shortly before 1900, someone enlighten me, please...

Quote:


As this is the title of an old Sex Pistols album, released after the group disintegrated, I've always assumed it meant something like: squeezing the very last drop of worth from something...

Quote:

Hello everybody!

Thankas a lot to all contributors so far!

So we have words from Dutch, German, Hungarian, Italian and Romanian yet (and English, of course).

Maybe you are so kind and answer my following questions:

gwnn wrote on 07/01/11 at 12:51:16:

From my Romanian grammar (language related books take that space that is left by my chessbooks  ) I conclude that the only ambigous letters in your list might be

-  < a > (for < a > proper, < ă > and < â >, the last one very rarely used, if I remember correctly),
-  < i > (for < i > proper and < î >),
-  < s > (for < s > proper and < ş >) and
-  < t > (for < t > proper and < ţ >).

Those show up in the words quoted above. So may I ask you to write those words again with the following conventions:

< ă > =  "a", < â > = "A",
< î > = "I",
< ş > = "sh", and 
< ţ > = "ts".

Are könnyűtiszt and nehéztiszt military ranks?

Thank you, gwnn!

Dear MNb, what is the exact meaning of the verb "schaken" in Dutch? Does it mean "to play chess" or "to (give) check"? I don't know a german verb for either of these, apart from the compounds schachspielen and schachgeben, something like *schachen in either sense is (at least for me) not possible. 

A german would probably understand the meaning of "am toten Pferd ziehen", I guess, but (s)he might misinterpret it as a description for somebody who never gives up hope or is just brainless.

Dear Bresando,

do I understand you correctly that pedone is a pedestrian?

----------

As far as I see, in all those languages there is a noun for 0-0 / 0-0-0. It might sound stupid in an english-speaking chess forum to ask that question, but is there also a noun for that in English (apart from the gerund "castling", of course)??
Are there languages who have two unrelated words for 0-0 and 0-0-0 respectively?

It might also be interesting to inquire about the words for pawn promotion. In German it's (Bauern)Umwandlung, lit. "pawn-conversion". I wonder if eng. "to queen a pawn" is also possible if the pawn becomes a knight? Or can one say "to knight (bishop/rook) a pawn"? Are there other languages that in one way or the other use the word for "queen" to express "pawn promotion"?

Dear chess friends speaking any of the other 5994 languages not mentioned here, please contribute your chess expressions!

Best regards,

Zwischenzugzwang

Zwischenzugzwang wrote on 07/06/11 at 09:06:09:


I was quite surprised to read that there is no German equivalent to flogging a dead horse. There's a famous, brutally evocative scene in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment of a man flogging his (almost) dead horse. The power and imagery of that scene has stuck with me since I first read it about 30 years ago. I figured that even if "flogging a dead horse" wasn't a common phrase in Germany before Dostoevsky, every European nation would have a similar term after his great book. 

Yes, I know Dostoevsky wasn't German, but I thought that great literature breaks down language barriers.

"Offizier" - German in Mieses/Dufresne for everything except King and Pawn.

off-topic:
"Ein totes Pferd reiten." This is something you'll find easily via google and in satirical use for some behaviours in organizations.

"Auf ein totes Pferd setzen." (= bet on a dead horse) seems common to me. But I admit not having heard it since years.

Hallo Stefan,

your quote "The Dutch have the saying "aan een dood paard trekken" ("am toten Pferd ziehen"), in English there is "flogging (or: beating) a dead horse", but in German we have nothing similar, right? Only "sich umsonst/unnütz anstrengen". " - end quote.

As I was busy over the last days, I only managed to start my little research this morning. Lets see what will pop up. In the meantime, what about the following equivalent: "den (eigenen) König überdecken", for our english speaking friends "to overprotect one's king"?? 

Herzliche Grüße

Zwischenzugzwang (Oliver)

'vicar' is a better English name for the piece than is 'bishop' (tradition aside).

Vb2 , Bb2

'bishop' is the only piece whose name begins with a letter that is used in standard coordinate notation (what we all misnomerly call 'algebraic' notation). But there is no column 'v'.

I also kinda like that the shape of the letter 'V' seems a more natural match or description of how a vicar moves, than the letter 'B' is.

In the dictionary, the definition of 'vicar' uses the word 'bishop'.  Here is one example (which also shows that the words 'vicar' and 'vicarious' are related):

RC Church  a bishop or priest representing the pope or the ordinary of a diocese and exercising a limited jurisdiction

TERMINOLOGY
White starts with 16 'pieces'. They are 8 'pawns' plus 8 'officers'.