From: "Dr.Eduard Werner" <edi.werner <at> GMX <dot> DE>
Date: 19 mar 2001
Subject: Re: name of the pieces, colours, symbols, notation...

>   Now, we internationally use those wrong
> translations and I don't whink this may
> hinder the game in any way. We keep using
> our names in Spain (and in Italy they should
> be using theirs too). The main problem with
> shogi is that there are not enough players to
> play it locally so we are more forced to play it
> internationally. This is a different case.

I don't think this is really true: As soon as you play
against sb over the board speaking another language but
English, you'll "localize" terminology. In this case, it doesn't
matter in the least how many people are playing the game on this
planet apart from you. It's just the two of you. An example:
I usually talk Lithuanian with my wife. When we started
playing Chu, we automatically (reading the MSM) translated
not only the comments, but the names of the pieces as well.
Some of these names are taken over from chess (although my
wife doesn't play chess) like "rikis" for Bishop, some of
them are mere translations of the English names like "aklasis tigras"
for Blind Tiger, some of them are shortened like "vertikalusis"
(meaning "the vertical") for the Vertical Mover and some are based
on the movement like "pirmyn-atgal" (meaning "forward-backward")
for the Go-Between. Now the base for a Lithuanian-speaking
Chu-Shogi community is *really* scarce (even compared to the number
of Italian Shogi players, I guess), but even the Daidai
and Makadaidai pieces tend to have Lithuanian names. Not that
we force them to - they simply do.

Almost everyone of us has already tried to teach a bit of Shogi to kids. Do
you use the Japanese or English terminology? Unless you're Japanese or
English, of course not! When you're deeper in the matter, you'll
have to start reading books on Shogi in English and Japanese,
so you'll pick up that terminology. It's no real problem. Funny enough,
we're able to communicate on this list, aren't we?

>   We all insist in making it easier for the
> chess players. Experience shows that most if
> not every western shogi player plays chess
> too. As stated in this list, this discussion is
> relevant not only to the names of the pieces,
> but to everything related to shogi: squires,
> openings, strategies...

This is sth worth simplifying, I think. It should be comparably easy to
have *one* way of scoring in the Western (non-Kanji) world, shouldn't it?
The existance of 3 ways (at least) I find disturbing.

> P.S.: Are there no public domain TrueType
> fonts for shogi pieces?

I've written a TeX font which covers Modern Shogi,
Chu, Dai and Tenjiku. It's available from Colin
Adam's homepage http://www.colina.demon.co.uk
Maybe you'll find some tools to convert it to TTF?

Best

Edi