Alfil is not a Bishop, but moves diagonally like a Bishop but the move is limited to jumping over one square whether or not that square is occupied, Wikipedia is your friend
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfil
Alfil in early chess diagrams
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zagryan wrote:
Hello chess friends,
I have a question for Spanish members here. What is this figure called in English?
The website that shows the above diagram says it is called "Alfil" in Spanish, meaning Bishop. But the figures, or their costumes rather, look more like an elf or a joker, not someone you would find in a cathedral. I'm trying to understand what they're called wearing such costume. Am I making sense? Sorry for my English; it's not my first language.
That's not what that thread on chess typography says.
That is clearly the French "fool".
Thank you everyone for your comments. I'm not familiar with European culture (too far away from where I live) so couldn't quite pinpoint what the figure was in the diagram until @notmtwain kindly pointed out that it was the French "fool". I simply assumed it was Spanish because I've seen many Barcelona fans dressed like one on TV.
Anyway, one of the reasons for posting my original question was because I was interested in what the piece would look like in real-life. Some online searching revealed a company named Musketeer that offers a wide range of chess variant pieces. Unfortunately, none resembled a "fool".
Further search uncovered an interesting tidbit regarding alfil/fool which is copied below:
"In the end of the middle ages, the slow Alfil was replaced in the game of chess by the Bishop. This was part of an overall reform of the rules of Chess, making the game much faster.
The Bishop has its roots in an Indian piece called a Hasty or Gaja, which were both Indian words for elephant. Persians called it Pil, the Persian word for elephant, and the Arabs modified this to Fil. At some point, the Arabic definite article got prepended, giving the name Alfil, meaning the elephant. When the names of Fil and Alfil reached Europe, they were meaningless to the Europeans. In trying to find some meaning in the name, Europeans often used similar sounding words in their own languages. Italians started calling it Alfiere, which meant flag-bearer. The French began calling it delfino, which suggested "dauphin," the French crown prince. The French also played on the similarity in sound between fil and the French word fol, which is related to the English word fool. This led to the current French name for the piece, which is fou, meaning jester or fool."
Source: https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/bishop.html
Thanks to you guys, I learned a piece of history today. Now if someone can show me a piece carved as a fool, that would be super!
The reason may also be due to the influence of medieval 'courier chess', which included both alfil and bishop pieces, and the first used to be a jester because his role was that of a snitch or smuggler and jesters were very typical in the Middle Age.
In spanish the word 'alfil' is just used to name this piece.
Also note that in Chinese Chess which has similar roots to International Chess, the analogous figure that is the bishop or elephant in Anglo-American or Russian chess is labeled Elephant for Black and Minister for Red. In Chinese Chess, this piece can be seen to move diagonally but is restricted to a limited area (the Court?)
Dec 24, 2020
0
#7
Being new to the game, I am interested in the history of chess and I am finding this thread marvellously informative and interesting. Thank you for posing the question and to all who are answering. 👍
In the last post the "alfil" through different countries, in the font of Caslon (1841) (in Spanish) https://ajedreztipografia.wordpress.com/
when Arabs conquer Persian Empire they could not pronounce Pil that is a Persian word for elephant in chess. so they change Pil to Fil and they plus AL to it. AL in Arabic is equel THE in English.
Rook an Checkmate is originated from Persia too
Jun 27, 2023
0
#10
Another historic detail which may be helpful to understanding why the names of the pieces differ from country to country is because chess can be traced reaching different geographic areas along different geographic paths.
Chess has arrived to Europe mostly from the Muslim controlled pre re-Conquista Spain (I don’t think the term reconquista is very accurate but that’s what it is commonly referred to as). The region of what is mostly modern Spain was referred as Al Andalus, and Andalusia. North African Muslim caliphs and other officials ruled it. They had chess brought by Muslim Arabs from the area known back then as Persia. To Persia it came from area later known as Hindustan (India’s Indian name). In very old Indian descriptions of Chess actually all of the major pieces are depicted as people sitting on elephants. I think the pawns were depicted as soldiers in foot. As chess travelled people redefined them as horse/horseman/knight, camel, etc. In areas today known as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and other Stan they had their own versions of chess that didn’t really stick but. Allegedly the mass murderer Tamerlane (aka Timur) also “designed” his own chess where he added more squares and more units. He clearly was not a fan of minimalism.
Before chess reached Persia history becomes much more moot. Chess was then a very different game in rules and in roles assigned to pieces. Some people in China claim it’s prototype came to India from China, while Indians who view chess as a sort of element of their nationalist pride, vehemently deny it came from China. Who knows.
Important note about the Chinese chess , Xiang Qi, is that there is an intentional play on words. The word for elephant “Xiang” is pronounced same as “minister” also Xiang on the opposite side. They use different character. So it’s both an “elephant game” and a “game of ministers”.
The important thing is that besides India and China chess variants that are different were adopted by people in the Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan. Chess which travelled with the Muslim traders and conquerors to Southeast Asia became what’s known as Makruk as well as very similar Cambodian chess.
The point is that the way pieces are called in Southeast Asia are almost identical to piece names in Russia. Russia got chess not via Muslim Spain, via Europe, but first got it via land path from. For example the word in Russian did Rook is “ladya” which is an antiquated word for “boat”. The rook in south East Asia is also “boat”.
Similarly in Russian language other pieces have their pre-Spanish names such as elephant for Bishop, and vizier/firzan/firz for the piece now known as the Queen. In Russian this top counselor is “Ferz” and is male.
As chess travelled from the area of “re conquered” Spain to other parts of Europe different people and different languages caused diversity in name assignments for the pieces , as well as some diversity in piece design. For example in German language I think the Bishop is der Laufer which means “runner”, the knight is der Springer which means “jumper”, the pawn is der Bauer which literally means farmer.
Then, as a side effect of colonialism if major European powers , the naming conventions of pieces as well as the rules become more standardized across the world. I think that the more time people put into the game , the more likely they were to want to publish their writings about it, the more incentive there was to not alter the rules with which it became popular.
Chess has arrived to Europe mostly from the Muslim controlled pre re-Conquista Spain (I don’t think the term reconquista is very accurate but that’s what it is commonly referred to as). The region of what is mostly modern Spain was referred as Al Andalus, and Andalusia. North African Muslim caliphs and other officials ruled it. They had chess brought by Muslim Arabs from the area known back then as Persia. To Persia it came from area later known as Hindustan (India’s Indian name). In very old Indian descriptions of Chess actually all of the major pieces are depicted as people sitting on elephants. I think the pawns were depicted as soldiers in foot. As chess travelled people redefined them as horse/horseman/knight, camel, etc. In areas today known as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and other Stan they had their own versions of chess that didn’t really stick but. Allegedly the mass murderer Tamerlane (aka Timur) also “designed” his own chess where he added more squares and more units. He clearly was not a fan of minimalism.
Before chess reached Persia history becomes much more moot. Chess was then a very different game in rules and in roles assigned to pieces. Some people in China claim it’s prototype came to India from China, while Indians who view chess as a sort of element of their nationalist pride, vehemently deny it came from China. Who knows.
Important note about the Chinese chess , Xiang Qi, is that there is an intentional play on words. The word for elephant “Xiang” is pronounced same as “minister” also Xiang on the opposite side. They use different character. So it’s both an “elephant game” and a “game of ministers”.
The important thing is that besides India and China chess variants that are different were adopted by people in the Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan. Chess which travelled with the Muslim traders and conquerors to Southeast Asia became what’s known as Makruk as well as very similar Cambodian chess.
The point is that the way pieces are called in Southeast Asia are almost identical to piece names in Russia. Russia got chess not via Muslim Spain, via Europe, but first got it via land path from. For example the word in Russian did Rook is “ladya” which is an antiquated word for “boat”. The rook in south East Asia is also “boat”.
Similarly in Russian language other pieces have their pre-Spanish names such as elephant for Bishop, and vizier/firzan/firz for the piece now known as the Queen. In Russian this top counselor is “Ferz” and is male.
As chess travelled from the area of “re conquered” Spain to other parts of Europe different people and different languages caused diversity in name assignments for the pieces , as well as some diversity in piece design. For example in German language I think the Bishop is der Laufer which means “runner”, the knight is der Springer which means “jumper”, the pawn is der Bauer which literally means farmer.
Then, as a side effect of colonialism if major European powers , the naming conventions of pieces as well as the rules become more standardized across the world. I think that the more time people put into the game , the more likely they were to want to publish their writings about it, the more incentive there was to not alter the rules with which it became popular.
This is how I heard the story told:
The elephants were the four pieces placed next to kings and counsellors. They were jumping diagonally to the second square, thus only ever touching 8 squares each, and never meeting.
(A little over the top, but the pic from the alfil-wiki-page shows how it would take 8 alfils to cover the whole board. Look only at sky blue, pink, red and green to see all squares ever covered by the 4 alfils that truly started a game. Patches of yellow, purple, orange and sea blue are no elephant's country, really, as the center guys there are not in the starting formation).
The Arabs, abstracting, sometimes depicted the elephant abstractly by choosing its long ivory teeth as pars pro toto, teeth's ends up in the air so the piece would stand.
Coming to Europe, such a piece's form may have been conceived as bishop or joker for example, for the looks of a mitre or a jester's cap. The alfil stood as name in Spanish; became 'alfiere'- flag-bearer- in Italian; the elephant in Russian got translated ('slon'). Maybe it was the Dutch or the Deutsch that came up with a 12x8 chess variant named 'courier chess' for the strong piece introduced in it: The Courier, moving like the bishop-fou-slon-alfil-alfiere moves today. The current names 'loeper' in Dutch and 'Läufer' in German may stem from the messenger/courier role of the piece in this game, that seems to have been played from at least late 12th to early 19th century.
(On a side note: Another piece introduced on the 12x8 board of courier chess was called 'Schleich' and depicted as a jester).
This is from a 1616 Gustavus Selenus book (as given on the courier game wiki page). The troupe has potential for confusion, but here you have a fool piece, as a drawing.
While much has been said, I would like to add my two cents. In the original Indian chess:
- The pawn moved one step unlike two in modern chess.
The elephant (Bishop) moved two steps and could jump over a piece, as noted above.
The rook (from ratha, meaning chariot) was a powerful piece that moved as the modern rook does. By the way, "rook" indeed derives from the word for chariot.
The Senapati or General (Queen): Some texts claim it could move one step diagonally in any direction—though I’ve never observed this in India. Historically, it moved as the modern queen does.
The King moved as it does today, except that before a check, it could move once like a knight (horse). This is called Indian castling or Hindu castling.
Cultural Adaptations in Europe
1. General → Queen: The shift from "General" to "Queen" aligns with Europe’s powerful female monarchs (., Isabella of Spain, Victoria of England).
2. Chariot → Tower: Chariots lost relevance in European warfare, making the tower a more familiar symbol.
3. Elephant → Bishop (or Jester):
In England the Church changed the figure of Hasti/Fil/Alfil to Bishop and also added the cross on the head of the Kind. This was Christian appropriation of a secular game of chess. Nothing could be more amusing than a bishop on a battlefield. Something neither the Persians nor the Arabs or the Spanish did. This was done in England. The French, more secular, ridiculed the Church, and hence the Elephant/Fil/Alfil became Fol or the fool—the jester. This image above is French and not Spanish, and here the bishop is shown as the jester rediculing the Church.
It would only be appropriate if the secular came of Chess gets over from this appropriation and becomes secular again.
Alok-Lahad, I harbour the belief that the counsellor of the king only moved one step diagonally, and that the fast moving queen is an addition from Italy before around 1499. The pawn could ever only promote to the counsellor, just one rank above it in playing strength. Do you have sources describing today's queen move in old Indian chess? What is the original chess in your opinion? Do you refer to tschaturanga? Thanks!
11 days ago
0
#14
I believe the word you are looking for is "jester". Many royal courts had one. It is also the inspiration for the Joker in card decks.
The Sanskrit word 'mantri' used for the piece next to the 'rajah' in chaturanga means minister, the Persian 'farzin' and Arabic 'firzan' means vizier or counsellor. In the descriptions I read the piece was moving one square diagonally. Now, Alok-Lahad, three posts above, wrote, "historically, it moved like the modern queen does". I was asking him kindly for his sources for this 
Whereas the 'gaja' piece, which was the elephant and has become the bishop in English, the jester in French and the courier in for example Dutch and German, has three different move descriptions in chaturanga, each of which may have been the rule at different moments in time:
a) Jumping two squares into any direction (which gives each elephant 8 out of 64 squares to go, never meeting one another) which was also the way the alfil moved in shatranj. The German shatranj-wiki gives it as probably the oldest way this piece was moved in chaturanga.
b) One square straight forward or one square diagonally (reminding of the four legs plus the trunk of the elephant)
c) Jumping one square, orthogonally, as described by the Arabic master al-Adli in his work about the game of chess in 840.
Hello chess friends,
I have a question for Spanish members here. What is this figure called in English?
The website that shows the above diagram says it is called "Alfil" in Spanish, meaning Bishop. But the figures, or their costumes rather, look more like an elf or a joker, not someone you would find in a cathedral. I'm trying to understand what they're called wearing such costume. Am I making sense? Sorry for my English; it's not my first language.