Indoeuropean languages are fucking cool. Shah Mat in Persian, checkmate in English, Jaque Mate in Spanish. Jaque Mate is eerily close to Jeque Muerto (dead shah).
In Arabic we say كِش مات kish maat to mean checkmate. Here is the etymology of checkmate:
mid-14c., in chess, said of a king when it is in check and cannot escape it, from Old French eschec mat (Modern French échec et mat), which (with Spanish jaque y mate, Italian scacco-matto) is from Arabic shah mat “the king died” (see check (n.1)), which according to Barnhart is a misinterpretation of Persian mat “be astonished” as mata “to die,” mat “he is dead.” Hence Persian shah mat, if it is the ultimate source of the word, would be literally “the king is left helpless, the king is stumped.”
In Arabic a check is كِش مَلِك:
كِش kish means to recoil
and مَلِك malik means king
So when it’s a checkmate you say مات maat ‘died’ because it’s over now ت
“Shah Mat” is from Persian. As in your leader, the “Shah”, is helpless, or stumped, “Mat”. This phrase is what slowly evolved into ‘Checkmate’.
Indoeuropean languages are fucking cool. Shah Mat in Persian, checkmate in English, Jaque Mate in Spanish. Jaque Mate is eerily close to Jeque Muerto (dead shah).
Heeeeey, interesting note (and probably related?), ‘mat’ (or ‘maat’) is Arabic for died!
In Arabic we say كِش مات kish maat to mean checkmate. Here is the etymology of checkmate:
In Arabic a check is كِش مَلِك:
كِش kish means to recoil
and مَلِك malik means king
So when it’s a checkmate you say مات maat ‘died’ because it’s over now ت
“Shah mat” is also how you declare the end of the game in Russian, “шах и мат” they say