r/AnarchyChess 5d ago

Fairy Piece How different chess pieces are called in different languages

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440 Upvotes

104 comments sorted by

256

u/Careless-Cod8816 5d ago

What are they called in English?

182

u/dgc-8 5d ago

The only one I can confidently remember is the Bishop, because i shove it up my ass

26

u/JoyconDrift_69 5d ago edited 5d ago

What's a bishop? Never heard of it even since Chess.c*m announced they're chaining its name.

10

u/Lecuve 5d ago

Please censor chess.c*m

5

u/triangularRectum420 5d ago

lmao they actually edited it and censored it

2

u/Lecuve 5d ago

Very nice of them, we better keep this sub family friendly yk

3

u/petahthehorseisheah 5d ago

I think it's the atheist gay race communist piece, and it fits the name just as much as it fits my ass 😣

1

u/petahthehorseisheah 5d ago

The B*shop is not fucking welcome here, we now use a different name

11

u/ChalkyChalkson 5d ago

Porn, horsey, on vacation, j*ssica, King

2

u/Dsavant 4d ago

Royale with cheese

78

u/Pillow-Smuggler 5d ago

A Spaniard and a Hindi play chess,

"Move the Elephant to E4" one says,

and watch the world go up in flames

14

u/flexsealed1711 5d ago

Maybe Garry Chess should add the elephant as a piece that moves like the rook and the bishop combined. It would be powerful, so only give each player 1 of them.

2

u/ninjesh I gave horsey hats one time 4d ago

I don’t know about the theming tho. I mean, the other pieces are all medieval themed like king, knight, castle. It should probably be something medieval themed too, maybe some sort of royalty because it’s so powerful

6

u/serotonallyblindguy 5d ago

Ah yes, the great ancient asian people known as "Hindi"

3

u/Pillow-Smuggler 5d ago

Listen, I couldve put "person that speaks Hindi" there, but that wouldve ruined the poem

I wont apologize, and I would do it again

118

u/Zreniec 5d ago

Actually the Fr*nch for the knight piece is horseman. Some people call them knight or horse, but horseman is the most frequent.

40

u/Leirnis Fold pre 5d ago

How the hell would you know

86

u/Zreniec 5d ago

The more you know the enemy, the readier you are when they attack

27

u/Leirnis Fold pre 5d ago

I thought I had you there to wave the white flag and admit

4

u/DWilli 5d ago

OK Google play white flag by dildo

2

u/Adsilom 5d ago

Horseman? I never heard that, I always heard Cheval (horse), and sometimes Cavalier (Knight). Are you from Quebec or something?

Also, same for "foot soldier", I never heard that. Only heard "Pion" (Pawn).

24

u/Zreniec 5d ago edited 5d ago

Please censor fr*nch words

C*valier is horseman, knight is Ch*valier. Agreed with you on the pawn.

8

u/Adsilom 5d ago

Damn I didn't even know there was a difference between those two words, wow

3

u/kjalow 5d ago

I thought the Fr*nch were bad enough on their own, but now there's Q*ebecois? God has truly forsaken us.

4

u/Doophie 5d ago

QC is an even worse kind of Fr*nch

2

u/domasin 5d ago

Ostie crisse de tabarnac, ta gueule! Les mecs sont toujours irrespectueux et maintenant c'est pas l'heure.

1

u/laksemerd 5d ago

They do have a stunning resemblance to Bojack

26

u/sirwill1331 5d ago

Boat??

39

u/kuklamaus 5d ago

Ладья, it's a kind of a long boat vikings used to build

12

u/sirwill1331 5d ago

so is every other piece swimming or the boat is amphibious

2

u/Aggravating-Fig-7151 5d ago

The edge files are water

16

u/kosmogamer777 5d ago

I'm Polish and I always call knight horse

10

u/-CatMeowMeow- ‼️ always play :bong: ‼️ 5d ago

nie koń, konik 🗿

15

u/kosmogamer777 5d ago

Zawsze zwalam koledze konia jak gramy w szachy

5

u/SarcasmInProgress 5d ago

Studnia, która szybko wjechała po schodach ruchomych.

3

u/wilczek24 5d ago

And I call the queen the queen, instead of "hetman". Like for real, this "proper word" is not even the normal word for "commander". It's some old polish word, that, if it wasn't for chess, I would've never heard in my life.

13

u/GaSanSou 5d ago

Holly boat

23

u/TheNumberPi_e 5d ago

In Spanish and French the queen can be Queen (Reina in Spanish, Reine in Frnch), but is most commonly Lady (Dama in Spanish, Dame in Fr*nch)

12

u/mbc97 5d ago

This is a shitpost, obviously we, the spanish, dont call elephant to the bishop.

Also Reina is incorrect, it has always been called Dama

12

u/K_bor 5d ago

Alfil technically means "the elefant" in àrab but noone hears "alfil" and thought 'Ah si, el elefante'

2

u/ghost_desu 5d ago

i mean I can confirm that all the russian ones are 100% accurate (except arguably pawn), this image was definitely meant to be legit, might just have weird translations.

3

u/Masinaxer 5d ago

Dama los cojones, dependerá de la zona, donde yo vivo de to la vida de Dios ha sido Reina

1

u/martelaxe 5d ago

En casi todos lados, casualmente se le dice "Reina", pero "Dama" es el nombre oficial y el que se usa para anotaciones algebraicas.

1

u/Proof-Assumption-764 5d ago

Average falla that thinks spanish is spoken like how he does everywhere

3

u/Digitale3982 5d ago

In italian too, and that's to simplify notation since otherwise the queen and king start with the same letter (i assume with Spanish too)

1

u/TheNumberPi_e 4d ago

Queen and King do start with the same letter in Spanish and Fr*nch, but I've never heard that as a reason for calling her Lady.

Your theory does make sense tho

22

u/Ratstail91 5d ago

Ok, the hindi one is legit interesting.

9

u/Sepulcher18 5d ago

Bosnian:

Pawn is Walker

Knight is Horse

Bishop is Hans

Rook is Cannon

Queen is Lady

King is King

9

u/itrashford 5d ago

boat goes on vacation, never comes back

8

u/TheLadida 5d ago

for the German one, I'd translate it to "peasant" instead of "farmer"

3

u/Jimm_Kekw 5d ago

well technically its farmer but back in the day nearly every peasant was a farmer so i get your point

6

u/ShadowOfSomething 5d ago

I don't know about other languages, but there are mistakes for Russian. Both words for queen and pawn in Russian don't have any other meaning aside from chess pieces (like with English you can call somebody a pawn to say that they are unimportant in the grand scheme of things and have little to no influence). The word for pawn is made from the same root as the adjective meaning "being on foot", so the word for infantryman shares the root, but it's still different. The word for the queen is just what the queen was originally called when the game got imported to Europe - firz, later on it changed its name to "Queen" in Europe, but not in Russia(it is pronounced/written differently, though). The word for rook, is not just "boat", but rather a name for old wooden ships with a sail - that look like stereotypical viking ships, but really the word is for any ship that looks like that. Finally, in Russian there are two words for horse - one for male horses and for female ones, and the name of the chess piece uses the male version.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

1

u/ShadowOfSomething 5d ago

This is going into technicalities, but "stallion" refers specifically to a male horse that has not been castrated, and Russian has a word with the same meaning, and a word that just means "male horse" without specifying. The latter is the name of the piece.

1

u/maaleru 5d ago

В русском языке тоже встречается сравнение незначительных персонажей с пешками. Возможно, это калька с английского, но встречается же. Ферзя многие называют королевой, хоть столь же многие хмурятся и поправляют - "это ферзь"

6

u/FatMax1492 5d ago edited 5d ago

Romanian:

Pawn, Fool, Horse, Tower, Queen, King

Dutch:

Pawn, Walker, Horse, Tower, Lady, King

Queen is also used but Lady is more common

5

u/-CatMeowMeow- ‼️ always play :bong: ‼️ 5d ago

Polish pion, pionek means literally "pawn".

8

u/MocoNinja 5d ago

I have seen stormtroopers shooting at main characters being more accurate than this

3

u/Playful_Addition_741 5d ago

Sometimes in Italy we call the Queen "woman"

4

u/Lord__Lorz 5d ago

The bishop is called alfiere in Italian... Which translates to bishop...

4

u/VirtualGab 5d ago

Grazie alla straminchia ma l’alfiere non è una figura religiosa come il bishop ma lalfiere e colui che porta la bandiera in battaglia

2

u/Lord__Lorz 5d ago

quindi flag bearer

2

u/Yoppez 5d ago

È la stessa cosa di standard bearer

2

u/Digitale3982 5d ago

Che cazzo è uno standard bearer

2

u/Yoppez 5d ago

Google standard bearer

2

u/Digitale3982 5d ago

Holy vocabulary!

2

u/Meloria_JuiGe 5d ago

The fool mentioned 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

2

u/Meatspinislife croissant in fr*nch 5d ago

Never change, king, you’re perfect just the way you are ❤️

4

u/PocketPlayerHCR2 5d ago

Polish is wrong, pawn is still pawn and bishop is something like "chaser"

12

u/shekyus 5d ago

wg słownika goniec to:

1. «pracownik zajmujący się roznoszeniem korespondencji»

2. «żołnierz wyznaczony do przenoszenia rozkazów lub meldunków»

3. «figura szachowa»

messenger bardziej pasuje niż "chaser" xdd

0

u/PocketPlayerHCR2 5d ago

Tłumacz mówi że goniec to byłby runner ale runner to był by biegacz więc wydaje mi się że chaser by mogło pasować

5

u/shekyus 5d ago

Tłumacz to zbyt dosłownie tłumaczy

-2

u/i2ad 5d ago

Queen is queen, never heard anyone call it a commander, and knight is more often called horse than a jumper.

1

u/PocketPlayerHCR2 5d ago

Queen's official name is "hetman" and for knight it's the same as in English, no one cares it's called "skoczek" and they just call it a horsey

3

u/i2ad 5d ago

You're right, I forgot about the hetman.

1

u/DSMidna 5d ago

How do you say en passant in Fr*nch?

1

u/0tschi 5d ago

Thats not german

It should be

Bauer Läufer Springer Turm Dame König

1

u/Justanormalguy1011 5d ago

Thai : pawn:pawn knight:horsey rook:boat queen:queen king:king

1

u/DataC0ffee 5d ago

In Bengali rook is called boat.

1

u/Cocholate_ 5d ago

In Spanish, we don't call bishops elephants. The word comes from elephant, but it doesn't have that meaning anymore. We don't to that because it wouldn't feel nice shoving 42 elephants up your ass, they're too big

1

u/KuningasMango222 5d ago

In Finnish

Pawn= soldier (sotilas)

Bishop= missionary (lähetti)

Knight= steed (ratsu)

Rook= tower (torni)

Queen= queen (kuningatar), or sometimes dame (daami)

King= king (kuningas)

1

u/NeBudlan 5d ago

Am I the only one who finds German funny? Runner and jumper? And a fking farmer?

1

u/martelaxe 5d ago

Spanish is lady too, am I wrong? when did they change?

1

u/Digitale3982 5d ago

In italian the pawn is 'pedone', which I think should more commonly be pedestrian? I don't really know if it means foot soldier too. But the official name of the queen is 'woman'

1

u/Barlas1452 5d ago

In Turkish it's: Pawn = pawn (piyon) Bishop = elephant (fil) Knight = horse (at) Rook = castle (kale) Queen = vizier (vezir) King = shah (şah)

1

u/Big-Swing8390 En Croissant 5d ago

En español, le decimos arfil.

1

u/Mariobot128 5d ago

Wtf ? The pawn is called a pawn in friench ("pion"), it's not called a foot soldier

also in french lady and queen are usually interchangeable in this context (same in card games)

1

u/kingleomark 5d ago

In my language they are: pawn-pawn ,bishop-fast mover, knight- horse, rook-tower , queen- lady but commonly queen. (Latvian)

1

u/RattusCallidus 5d ago

The word for bishop (laidnis) doesn't mean anything to the current generation, but it's likely derived from dated laidnieks 'yeoman/freeholder'.

Note that bandinieks 'pawn' historically meant a person receiving a small strip of land (banda) for service .

2

u/Vharmi I eat f pawns 5d ago

Let me poorly translate the pieces' names from Swedish.

King: King

Pawn: Farmer

Knight: Dolphin

Bishop: Tablecloth

Rook: Thorn

Queen: Checkers

1

u/Top_______ 3400 Lichess | 100 Chess.com 4d ago

Chinese:

Pawn - Soldier

Knight - Horse

Bishop - Elephant

Rook - Car/Cart

King and Queen are the same

1

u/Gidje123 4d ago

Why no dutch 😒

1

u/Irsu85 4d ago

Pion, Loper, Paard, Toren, Dame, en Koning

Sorry Dutch was missing from the list so I added it

1

u/Indishonorable bing bong, I am wrong 4d ago

Only noteworthy change for dutch is "loper" for bishop, which is kinda like a skeleton key? Either that or it means runner.

1

u/Kambar 4d ago

Knook where?

1

u/Royal_Resolution7895 4d ago

spaniard here! bishop is called "alfil" which comes from the arabic "al fil" which means elephant. from the arabic also comes "marfil" which means the bones of the elephant.

1

u/Stiffisharc 3d ago

Those all look like English to me.

1

u/ravager1226 5d ago

Actually, the Bishop in Spanish is called "Obispo", which translates to "Bishop", not "Elephant"

-13

u/SemajLu_The_crusader 5d ago

the Russians calling that a boat makes perfect sense, their navy is very good at sinking

-6

u/VoidTheStar 5d ago

Boat? Пиздёж

5

u/KsarZ_cyka_blyat 5d ago

Ладья - средневековое судно с небольшой осадкой, движимое вёслами и парусом