in french it's "cavalier" which means "rider" which makes even less sense because the piece doesn't depict the rider but the mount also the bishop is "fou" aka "crazy" and the rooks are just called towers because why would you call them anything else
In spanish, "Alfil" comes from the persian word to say elephant "phil". It seems in the first versions the pieces were: tower, knight, elephant, the army general (now called queen) and the king. Now I write them togeter, they really sound like a persian army...
Knight is a title, these horses are just very heroic, they are two of the closest confidants of the king afterall. (But for real, there are several historical cases of knighted animals.)
the knight is actually a dude on a horse, hence the unique movement; the horse steps in one direction, then the knight dismounts to the left or the right, then the horse rejoins him
i will catfish you and develop a loving relationship with you, then continue to get more and more believable with every text, then once we plan a date i will show up wearing a ski mask and punch your nose, then run off with whatever cash you have on you then develop a second relationship to actually be me, again try and form a date, except this time i will actually show up as myself, i will talk with whoever is there until we eventually get married, adopt 2 ethiopian children and play multiple thousand chess rounds not caring about the fact that you say ‘horse’ instead of ‘knight’. then once you’re on life support, we will have one last chess round, me playing as white. the game will go as such: e4 e5 Bc4 Bc5 (don’t you dare boi me) (yes that is literally the name of the opening (bishop’s opening, boi variation)) Ne2 Hf6? i will thwn proceed to put on the ski mask again, and say the words, “i’m the same person who robbed you __ years ago! good luck..” then knock you out and proceed to rob you gain and drain the battery of my phone. i will then pull out a gun, telling everyone inside to exit. once my phone battery has reached 2%, i will unplug your life support, whack you with the cable and then charge my phone to play the same opening again and again. e4, Bc4, Ne2. thank you for listening to my ted talk
Well, in Spanish they are horses and not knight so I never had this question before. In french they are "Chevaliers", and "Cheval" is horse, so it is not such a problem because the world for knight in french is kinda "Horse-man, Horse-dude"
@@TheDevlain In french they are "cavaliers" which means "riders", not "chevaliers" which means "knights". They're rather close in etyomogy and meaning though so fair enough.
The modern chess pieces originated in western Europe. A lot of cultures decided to not use any human statues mostly due to functional, architectural and religious beliefs. Thus, most knights were designed to be simple and just include a horse. The pieces have further evolved to be easier to construct and recognizable. Side note: The person might not be on the horse because it only show's it's head while most horseback riders do not ride on a horse's head. As a 1400 player: I can confirm it is a knight.
@@diegomastro5681 It actually isn't, first example German: jumper (According to other comments I've seen, this is also true in Polish & horse-rider in French).
In Finland we call it Horse. Others are Soldier, Tower, Messenger, Queen and King. Playing cards: Diamonds, clubs, hearts and spades are called Squares, Crosses, Hearts (I guess) and cauldrons.
Medieval chess sets had an actual knight riding a horse. In the renaissance they started making sets where the piece was just the horse, but they still called it a knight anyway for consistency.
If you knight a horse it's a knight. There's 2 horses, fighting in the king's and queen's personal retinue. _Those horses are knighted._ *_Therefor Hors = Kinght._* 👍 Source: I made that shit up.
How about they calling a castle's tower as "Rook", a thing wearing a hat with a cut as "Bishop", another thing wearing a crown as "Queen" and a dude who's a Christian as "King"?
"Knight" is just a title given to crusader orders (or really any heroic thing). Technically everything can be a knight, it just needs to be heroic enough. Oh, and horses used by late medieval knights wore armour.
In Dutch we actually have another piece that has a name that makes sense, but is a bit strange. We call the rook a 'tower', the knight a 'horse', the pawn, king and queen have the same name. However, the bishop is a 'walker'. I guess because it can walk the entire board, but so can the rook and the queen, so it's a bit strange.
In Italian we call it "cavallo" (horse). I've seen a few other comments saying the same is true for spanish and portuguese, so it's clearly english being wrong
In Swedish the horse/knight is called “Springare”. That apparently means a nice and calm horse. Then there’s the bishop, the “löpare”. It translates to runner.
I always say to my friends newer to chess that it's a horse even though I usually call it a knight to easily give the information I want to give without needing to explain that that's a knight
Cannon, horse, hunter. That's what we call the corner trio here in the Balkans. At least in some areas of the Balkans. And we don't call them the corner trio, I just made that one up.
