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WonderWord origin

Checkmate comes from the Persian shāh māt. Shāh means king, and māt is usually explained as “helpless” or “at a loss”, so the phrase says the king is trapped with no escape. The popular reading “the king is dead” comes from a similar Arabic word, but in chess the king is never actually captured.

Etymology

Language

The story behind the card

Chess began in India around the 6th century as chaturanga and passed to Persia as chatrang, which the Arabs called shatranj. After the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century it spread across the Islamic world and reached Europe through Spain and Italy, and its words travelled with it. Shāh became Old French eschec, which gave English both check and chess; shāh māt became eschec mat and then checkmate. The rook, too, comes from the Persian rukh, a chariot. Turkish kept the Persian words almost unchanged: players still say “şah” when they attack the king and finish the game with “mat”, and the Turkish name of the game, satranç, comes from shatranj. Scholars still debate the exact sense of māt: besides “helpless” and the Arabic “died”, some link it to a Persian verb meaning to remain, in the sense of being left stranded in an ambush.

Türkçe oku
Satrançtaki “şah mat” sözü Farsça shāh māt deyiminden gelir. Şah “kral” demektir; mat ise çoğunlukla “çaresiz, şaşkın” diye açıklanır. Yani söz, kralın kıstırıldığını, kaçacak yeri kalmadığını anlatır. Yaygın “şah öldü” yorumu, Arapçada “öldü” anlamına gelen benzer bir sözcükten doğar; oysa satrançta şah hiçbir zaman tahtadan alınmaz.

Satranç, 6. yüzyıl dolaylarında Hindistan'da çaturanga adıyla doğdu; İran'a çatrang olarak geçti, Araplar da ona şatranc dedi. 7. yüzyılda Arapların İran'ı fethinden sonra İslam dünyasına yayıldı, oradan İspanya ve İtalya üzerinden Avrupa'ya ulaştı. Oyunun sözcükleri de onunla birlikte yol aldı. Şah, Eski Fransızcada eschec oldu; İngilizcedeki check (şah çekmek) ve chess (satranç) bu sözcükten türedi. Şah mat da önce eschec mat, sonra checkmate hâlini aldı. Kalenin İngilizcedeki adı rook da Farsçada savaş arabası anlamına gelen ruh'tan gelir. Türkçe ise bu sözcükleri neredeyse hiç değiştirmeden korudu: Oyuncular hâlâ şahı tehdit ederken “şah” der, oyunu “mat” ile bitirir; satranç sözcüğü de Arapça şatranc'tan gelir. Mat sözcüğünün tam anlamı hâlâ tartışılıyor: “Çaresiz” ve Arapçadaki “öldü” yorumlarının yanında, bazı araştırmacılar onu “kalmak” anlamındaki Farsça bir fiile bağlar; bu yoruma göre mat, pusuya düşüp kalakalmış demektir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Checkmate
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