History of Chess

jim_ostler
May 2, 2012, 7:37 AM 13

The precursors of chess originated in India during the Gupta Empire, where its early
form in the 6th century was known as chaturaga, which translates as "four
divisions (of the military)": infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry, represented
by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook,
respectively.

Chess was introduced to Persia from India and became a part of the princely or
courtly education of Persian nobility. In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name
became chatrang, which subsequently evolved to shatranj, and the rules were
developed further. Players started calling "Shh!" (Persian for "King!") when
attacking the opponent's king, and "Shh Mt!" (Persian for "the king is
helpless") when the king was attacked and could not escape from attack. These
exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled to other lands.

The game was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia,
with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. The Moors of North
Africa rendered Persian "shatranj" as shaerej, which gave rise to
the Spanish acedrex, axedrez and ajedrez; in Portuguese it became xadrez, and
in Greek zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the
Persian shh ("king"). Thus, the game came to be called ludus
scacchorum or scacc(h)i in Latin, scacchi in Italian, escacs in Catalan, checs in French
(Old
French eschecs); schaken in Dutch, Schach in German, szachy in Polish, ahs in Latvia
n, skak inDanish, sjakk in Norwegian, schack in Swedish, akki in Finnish, ah in Sout
h Slavic languages, sakk in Hungarian and ah in Romanian; there are two theories
about why this change happened:

1. From the exclamation "check" or "checkmate" as it was pronounced in

various languages.
2. From the first chessmen known of in Western Europe (except Iberia and
Greece) being ornamental chess kings brought in as curios by Muslim
traders.
The Mongols call the game shatar, and in Ethiopia it is called senterej, both
evidently derived from shatranj.

Chess spread directly from the Middle East to Russia, where chess became known
as (shakhmaty, treated as a plural).

The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest
being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout
Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it
was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering
shatranj, backgammonand dice named the Libro de los juegos.

Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began
taking shape. Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and others carried it to the Far
East where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often played on the
intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.Chaturanga
reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine empire and the expanding Arabian
empire. Muslims carried chess to North Africa, Sicily, and Iberia by the 10th century.

The game was developed extensively in Europe, and by the late 15th century, it had
survived a series of prohibitions and Christian Church sanctions to almost take the
shape of the modern game. Modern history saw reliable reference
works, competitive chess tournaments and exciting new variants which added to
the game's popularity, further bolstered by reliable timing mechanisms (first
introduced in 1861), effective rules and charismatic players.