Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Apr 11, 2020 10:16 PM UTC:
I can confirm that the Russians do call the bishop an elephant "slon" (although their physical boards have pieces that look the same.) So I would agree that the Spanish are in the mainstream by calling it an alfil.
I also don't think the use of "aanca" is that well established and, given this information, I think we should tend toward something else.
What to do with this page is a bigger question. This page is more of an opinion piece by Betza than an encyclopediac entry. (Despite the icon, this page isn't in the Piececyclopedia.) That said, the page does present some things as facts that appear to be incorrect. I am in favor of - at a minimum - correcting obvious errors with footnotes indicating we have updated Betza's text for accuracy. Even better would be to retire this page and replace it with a new, more encyclopedia-worthy page on bent riders. For example - I care not for the discussion about whether space aliens would use our chess pieces.
I can confirm that the Russians do call the bishop an elephant "slon" (although their physical boards have pieces that look the same.) So I would agree that the Spanish are in the mainstream by calling it an alfil.
I also don't think the use of "aanca" is that well established and, given this information, I think we should tend toward something else.
What to do with this page is a bigger question. This page is more of an opinion piece by Betza than an encyclopediac entry. (Despite the icon, this page isn't in the Piececyclopedia.) That said, the page does present some things as facts that appear to be incorrect. I am in favor of - at a minimum - correcting obvious errors with footnotes indicating we have updated Betza's text for accuracy. Even better would be to retire this page and replace it with a new, more encyclopedia-worthy page on bent riders. For example - I care not for the discussion about whether space aliens would use our chess pieces.