From: "Dr.Eduard Werner" <edi.werner <at> GMX <dot> DE>
Date: 16 mar 2001
Subject: Re: About the name of the pieces

On Friday 16 March 2001 13:32, you wrote:
> Then probably make up whatever names seem to work in a particular language
> for teaching beginners (call a bishop a boiled egg for all it matters), and
> when they become interested in the game at all, they will either ask what
> the original names of the pieces are, or will hear someone call a bishop
> "kaku" and just learn it. Even on a board like this...

It depends a lot on the background of your players. To a person with no
chess experience (there are such shogi players, also in Europe) it means
absolutely nothing to call a piece 'Rook' or 'Bishop'. Only a chessplayer
will have an idea how the piece is moving, but as soon as it's a Lance,
a Silver, or a Gold, he will have to learn the name as well as the moves.
In the cases of Knight and Pawn, the chess background is even misleading.

Of course, for someone with knowledge of English, but no Japanese, the
English names will be easier to remember than the Japanese, but in the case
of ca. 10 such names this hardly matters. (It might be a very good point in
the case of the bigger Shogi variants, though.) Nonetheless, piece names in
the language of the players appear: In Germany, we call a Hisha "Turm" and a
Keima "Springer", it would be strange to use the English names here. We have
heard that in Sweden it's quite the same. Esperantists also call a Gold
General "Oro" (btw., "Invito al la japana ^sako" has been written by
Japanese). I think this is a good sign since it shows that the thing in
question has become something familiar.

Edi