Saturday, July 4, 2026

Titles

 
Source: Shahmat, vol. 3 no. 5, back cover

It is odd, but it turns out that the English-language title of the ICF journal was actually badly chosen. Instead of the Shachmat or Ha'sachmat, which would fit well with the Hebrew term שחמט, the title in English is Shahmat - which in Hebrew would be something like שה-מט...

Why? The problem is that the Hebrew chet (ח) in שחמט has no exact equivalent in English (or other European languages). English h is less close than ch but is still reasonable. The editors, presumably, therefore preferred a literal translation. שחמט means "the shah [שח] is defeated [מט]." So they preferred to use the English shah, the name of the Persian ruler, rather than the phonetically closer shach

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