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I am currently spending a year in Russia, and have just bought a chess set as a birthday present for my boyfriend. I was very curious to find that there are elephants instead of bishops, and no one I have asked seems to know why. (The Russian for elephant, 'slon', is also the chess term for a bishop, so someone suggested that it might just be a joke on the part of the person who made it!) A quick search turned up your page, which has answered my question. Thank you!
the information is really good, but it is inaccurate about one thing...the name. as an arab, 'alfil' must sound like 'been', and the 'al-' part could be droped, for it stands for 'the' in english, so it's correct form is 'feil' and in Arabic it's plural form is 'fei-ya-lah' or 'fie-lan' for two.
Your point is well taken. I'd like to see pieces given linguistically valid names. Unfortunately, it's been called an alfil for so long and by so many that I doubt the more correct feil will take hold, even though it deserves to.
There's no reason why better linguistic information could not be included, even if the piece continues to be known by what is now its conventional name.
When names move from one language to another, then articles like the definite article sometimes just stick to them. I've seen quite a few place names in the south of Spain, for instance, that have names beginign with 'Al-', obviously the Arabic definite article. 'Alfil' is the name the piece acquired in Europe. The fact that the text mentions it is good enough. The Arabic 'fil' is also related to the Hebrew 'pil', which can be found in the Mishna, dating back to the first couple of centuries C.E., and which the Even-Shoshan Hebrew dictionary traces back to teh Akkadian 'pilu'. The chess piece was obviously named for the Arabic word.
Well, the spanish term for a bishop is 'Alfil'
Regarding the name, the similarity between Alfil and Elephant is fortuitous. The latter derives from Elephas, a word in Classical Greek meaning both elephant and ivory. A similar coincidence in chess history is that of Spider (literally spinner) and Ashtapada (literally eight-footed). Regarding the move itdose seem strange that so weak a piece represents so strong an animal, and a leaping elephant seems very fanciful. A more accurate portrayal of elephantine behaviour would be if it were blocked by an allied piece (as in Xianqqi, the Chinese version) but captured any enemy piece en route. This would mean that it could capture (a) on three times as many squares as it can reach and (b) two pieces at once.
How many Alfils are needed to checkmate a lone king?
If the King is on a corner space of a regular Chess board, it will take four Alfils to checkmate a King. Three will cover the spaces surrounding the King, and the fourth will check the King. Since the King cannot reach it, it will not need protection. If the King helps in the checkmate of an enemy King, only two Alfils will be required for checkmate. For example, with no other pieces on the board, Black is checkmated with the Black King at a1, the White King at a3, and White Alfils at c3 and d3. The c3 Alfil checks the King, and the d3 Alfil prevents escape to b1.
It can't be just any four Alfils. They must be 'discordant', that is, not on the same cycle of squares. In historical Shatranj, such a position could never arise because the pawns could only promote to Ferz, and though mating with multiple Ferzs was a real-life challenge, there would be only two Alfils to help out at most..
Two alfils + king can mate the opposing king in a helpmate situation, but they cannot force the opposing king into the corner if he does not wish to go. Three are certainly insufficient for this task. Eight are certainly sufficient. Whether it can be done with some number between four and seven (of course, with all the alfils differently colobound) is not something I wish to think about for the moment.
Not only could the four-Alfil checkmate never happen in a traditional game, nor could the King-and-two-Alfils checkmate, as an Alfil could not reach c3 or any other square threatening a corner.
<i>Not only could the four-Alfil checkmate never happen in a traditional game, nor could the King-and-two-Alfils checkmate, as an Alfil could not reach c3 or any other square threatening a corner.</i>
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This makes an assumption about the starting squares of the alfils which is unwarranted. As far as I can tell, the question was not asked with respect to shatranj or any other particular game.
True, but I was adding to John Lawson's comment. In many of the games that have used this piece the achievement of the combination of pieces would win regardless of position because of Bare King.
The anonymous Excellent in the previous comment reminded me why I haven't given this page a rating of Excellent myself. It still carries the errorneous etymological speculation on which I commented earlier. The word elephant derives from the Classical Greek elephas, dating to at least a millennium before early Chess began spreading west. There is plenty of documentation of that.
But I'm confused.. What is the name for Elephant in Arabic? since the piece represented just that! 'Al' is the article ok.. ist it Fil? Or did the name just made sense in Persian (Pil?)and the Arabs did the same thing Spanish did in keeping the name without any mining? (well.. in reality Alfil IS the Spanish word for Bishop, so it has a mining). Any native Arabic please want's to comment? Curious.. if my country (Portugal) and Spain have a lot in common on it's evolution, why do We call also Bishop to the bishop? :P
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