In both cases, chaturanga means 'four parts' or 'four limbs,' and the chess meaning traces back to the 4 military branches in India.

Chaturanga might also sound familiar to the yogis among you-it's the same word as the four-limbed yoga plank pose! Today, this word can be used for a whole category of chess-like board games that evolved their own forms in cultures around the world. Other languages got the name of the game from a different source: the Sanskrit name chaturanga. The plural name is the one that was borrowed into English as chess! What was once shah became more like shak, and this evolved into the older French words eschec (check) and eschecs (plural name for all the pieces). In many European languages, the 'h' at the end of shah was replaced with a similar sound also made at the back of the throat: the 'k' sound. Second, it underwent an important sound change. First, its meaning expanded to refer to the whole game and not just the one piece. The Persian word was adopted into Arabic as the name of the king playing piece, and when the game made it to Europe, shah evolved in 2 ways. Not surprisingly, the history of the English name chess all starts with a king: the Persian shah! Today, we pronounce that word in English as 'sha,' since even though we have the 'h' sound in English (like in happy), we don't pronounce “h” at the ends of words-but other languages have different rules, and in Persian, you pronounce the 'h' at the end of shah. All you have to do is listen closely… Where does the word 'chess' come from? If you've ever tried your hand at chess, you know how many languages are involved: en passant comes from French, German gives us super fast blitz matches, and the bishop's fianchetto move comes from Italian.īut there's a lot more where that came from! The long history of chess is a history of language and linguistic change, too.

French chess piece names