Hello everybody, it's Zzz again. I just had a look at the etymology of the German term Rochade ("castling"). This word seems to have quite a long history, so for those of you who are interested in the origin of this word, I'll translate roughly what the "Kluge" (a highly acknowledged etymological dictionary of German, 24th edition, Walter de Gruyter 2002, p. 768) has to say about it:

"The term Rochade was introduced in the 16th century, coming from the term for "rook" (Middle High German roch, from Middle Dutch roc, which is derived from Old French roc, which is from Spanish roque. Roque is still not the end of the story, this word goes back to Arabic ruhh, which itself is based on Persian (Farsi?) ruh and Middle Persian rahv with the meaning "Aufbau, Karosserie (des Kriegswagens)", i.e. "bodywork of the chariot"."

So Rochade seems to be the 8th link of this chain, which involves six different languages! I for myself find this chain quite impressive! 

Best regards,

Zwischenzugzwang

Zwischenzugzwang wrote on 07/14/11 at 18:14:33:

You can find it in some Dutch sources, but generally someone who uses the word is considered a wise guy/girl. Common is geïsoleerde pion.
That brings me to another remarkable difference. In English we speak of doubled pawns, ie plural. In Dutch it's geïsoleerde pion, ie singular. What about other languages?

Same question for: Opposite Coloured Bishops are called Ongelijke Lopers in Dutch, which literally means Unequal Bishops.

Finally (for today) an Octopus is a Knight firmly placed in the enemy's camp. The word was introduced in Dutch probably by IM Leon Pliester, after Kasparov planted a Knight on d3 in a famous game against Karpov and won. It's essential that the Knight controls 8 important squares. Is this used in other languages as well? Did Pliester invent it?

Stefan Buecker wrote on 07/14/11 at 20:28:05:

Perhaps, but that is not how the Dutch use it. We rate both the Bishop and the Knight 3 pawn units and the Rook 5 (the Queen is 9, sometimes 10). So the Kleine Kwaliteit (Minor Exchange) is indeed two light pieces vs. a Rook. In fact I know a line in the Jänisch in which Black has two light pieces against a Rook and two pawns and seems to be slightly worse: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 4.Nc3 fxe4 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Nxe5 dxe4 7.Qh5+ g6 8.Nxg6 hxg6 9.Qxh8 Qf6 10.Qxf6 Nxf6. I lost twice as Black, which of course doesn't say anything.

Stefan Buecker wrote on 07/14/11 at 18:31:35:


Yes, now I remember!
But does this terminology also exist in German in the sense indicated by MNb for Dutch, that the "minor exchange" is two light pieces vs. rook and the "major exchange" is rook vs. (single) light piece?

Hello everybody!
It's a real pleasure for me to see all these little pieces of information coming together, to all the contributors!!  

I'll wait some more time, then I'll try to put all these data together and write a little preliminary "paper" so that everybody can have access to it.

Some remarks / questions:

Dear TalJechin, you wrote that there is (or was) a particular word for a Nh6 - brohinka. Would both a black and a white Nh6 qualify for a brohinka? Is there any other meaning of that word?
I wonder if there are other languages who have a particular word for a certain piece on a certain square? In German for example, one can say Randspringer for a knight on the rim, but the rim of the chess board consists of 28 squares, so brohinka seems to be at least 28 times more exact than Randspringer.

Dear gwnn, dear MNb, it's interesting to hear about the "minor" and "major exchange" in Hungmanian (sorry for that, it's not meant derogatory!) and Dutch. Obviously, this linguistic distinction expresses very different concepts in both languages. I've never heard that distinction in German, maybe Stefan would know if some people use kleine Qualität ("minor exchange") in the sense indicated by MNb!?

Dear Stefan, certainly there is quite some "leaking" of chess terminology into other fields of day-to-day speech, especially in sports and politics. As I mentioned in an earlier post (#6, I think), that might be a topic for several PhDs. Thanks for your diagram anyway! One might wonder why Zeitnot ("time trouble") was so much more important in the 50ies, whereas Zugzwang is "leading" by far since 1970 ... it might be even more a matter of politic sciences than of linguistics!
There seems to be a little misunderstanding. I never meant "to overprotect one's king" to be a meaningful concept in chess; my idea was to introduce a TN (= "terrific neologism"  ) into speech, with "overprotecting one's king" as chesswise equivalent to aan een dood paard trekken (the previously mentioned pulling of a dead horse).

Two questions that came to my mind: What does fianchetto mean in Italian (apart from a Bg2 etc of course)?
Do other languages also use Isolani for an isolated pawn? What is the Italian term - the "regular form" isolano or something totally different? Does anybody know where this plural form Isolani came from?

Best regards to all of you,

Zwischenzugzwang

My later modification, re brohinka: Maybe for some people, the term Linksspringer refers exclusively to the white queen's knight on c3.

I think there was a special distiction for "minor exchange" vs "major exchange" in Hungarian or Romanian, i.e. rook for a minor piece vs queen for a rook, but I can't remember which. Normally of course exchange just means rook for a minor piece. Do other languages have a term for that?

MNb wrote on 07/13/11 at 23:36:49:

Just like you call it: Extended ("Razshireno" in Bulgarian) Fianchetto. Now I find that fianchetto (Italian word) is a word from the fifth used language in chess here in BG. 

Vass wrote on 07/13/11 at 21:07:52:

Sometimes it's nice that Dutch is so similar to German.
Tijdnood and Zetdwang are very natural translations.

Pat, mat and remise have also outside chess more or less the same meaning as in German. Rokade doesn't have a non-chess related meaning though - at least I could not find one.

Let's see. Überdecken is German, En Passant is French, Fianchetto and Giuoco Piano are Italian, match (in the meaning of a series of games) is English. All are common in chess-Dutch.
Completely independent is Doorschuifvariant (English: Advance Variation; German: Einengungsvariante or Vorstossvariante). Of course I think the Dutch expression best, as pushing the e-pawn one square further is exactly what you do.
My favourite is Extended Fianchetto: two foreign languages, one expression. How do the Germans and Bulgarians call that?