NARDY = BACKGAMMON?

Andrei V. PRASOLOV

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Oct 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/6/97

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When I played BACKGAMMON many years ago in the USSR,
the game was cold NARDY, and known to originate
somewhere from Iran-Turkey-Armenia-Azerbajan.
We used some special names for throws,
mixture of Persian and Turkish. I remember only this:

6-6: shesh-gosha
6-5: sheshu-besh
6-4: beshu-besh

Can anybody answer the following questions:

1. What country did BLACKGAMMON originate from?
2. What was its original name?
3. What are the original names for the throws:

6-6, 6-5, 6-4, 6-3, ..., 3-3, 3-2, 3-1, 2-2, 2-1 ?

Thanks,

Yours,

Andrei V. PRASOLOV
Realfagsbygget
Universitetet i Tromso
9037 Tromso
NORWAY

Tel. [47] 77 64 47 79
Fax [47] 77 64 47 65

e-mail: pras...@math.uit.no
web address: http://www.math.uit.no/~prasolov/

Greycat Sharpclaw

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Oct 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/7/97

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Meow...

There is an allegation that "Andrei V. PRASOLOV"
<pras...@math.uit.no> wrote:

>When I played BACKGAMMON many years ago in the USSR,
>the game was cold NARDY, and known to originate
>somewhere from Iran-Turkey-Armenia-Azerbajan.
>We used some special names for throws,
>mixture of Persian and Turkish. I remember only this:

>Can anybody answer the following questions:

>1. What country did BLACKGAMMON originate from?
>2. What was its original name?

Apparently from Mesopotamia, several thousand years back. Some
scholors have disputed the translations that this is based on,
however. My limited research makes me a supporter of this theory,
however.

The oldest confirmed "near-modern" version is the Persian game Nard,
from about 450 C.E. ... it is this that the Russian name/traditional
history apparently traces. Nard is approximately modern with no
doubles (6-6 gives you 2 six moves, not 4), no cube, and no gammons.

The older Roman varient (Caligula was known to cheat) is "Tabula"
(Latin for tables) - incidently it had 3 dice, not 2. It is from this
name that the modern names in the Romance language countries tend to
derive.

>3. What are the original names for the throws:

I have no idea.

>Thanks,

>Yours,

Greycat

Gre...@idt.net.spamguard
Does anyone have any spare tunafish??

Remove "spamguard" from return address to reply

Lars Soezueer

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Oct 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM10/7/97

to pras...@math.uit.no

Andrei V. PRASOLOV wrote:
>
> When I played BACKGAMMON many years ago in the USSR,
> the game was cold NARDY, and known to originate
> somewhere from Iran-Turkey-Armenia-Azerbajan.
> We used some special names for throws,
> mixture of Persian and Turkish. I remember only this:
>

> 6-6: shesh-gosha
> 6-5: sheshu-besh
> 6-4: beshu-besh
>

> Can anybody answer the following questions:
>
> 1. What country did BLACKGAMMON originate from?
> 2. What was its original name?

> 3. What are the original names for the throws:
>

> 6-6, 6-5, 6-4, 6-3, ..., 3-3, 3-2, 3-1, 2-2, 2-1 ?

3. (Repost of an article of mine from March 3, 1997)

Turkish players use names for all rolls that are derived from the
Persian language:
roll Turkish spelling (AFAIK) 'English' transcription
1-1 hep yek hep yak
1-2 [I don't remember]
1-3 seyek sayyak
1-4 cihar"uyek dzheehary-yak
1-5 penc, yek pentsh yak
1-6 s,es,"uyek sheshy-yek
2-2 dubara doobaara
2-3 sebad"u saybaady
2-4 cihard"u dzheehaardy
2-5 penc, d"u pentsh dy
2-6 s,es,"ud"u sheshydy
3-3 d"use dysay
3-4 cihar"use dzheehaarysay
3-5 penc"use pendzhysay
3-6 s,es,"use sheshysay
4-4 d"ort cihar dirt dzheehaar
4-5 penc, cihar pentsh dzheehaar
4-6 s,es, cihar shesh dzheehaar
5-5 d"ubes, dybesh
5-6 s,es,bes, sheshbesh
6-6 d"us,es, dushesh
("=umlaut, <,>=cedilla)

Yours,
sencay

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