Talk:Sáhkku

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Some issues of nomenclature (Describing the dice and the board)

I recommend changing some of the terms used. [First, background: most abstract game boards may be classified as either areal (played on the areas formed by a grid, e.g. Chess) or reticular (played on the intersections of lines, e.g. Go, most Merrels).] This article currently seems to use "fields" for the locations defined by reticular boards, and "tiles" for those defined by areal boards. This is not idiomatic American English (and I'm pretty sure not idiomatic British English, either). For an areal board, we'd typically say "squares" or "spaces" or "cells". But Sáhkku is (at least usually appears to be) played on a reticular board -- although I've seen the word "intersections" used for these locations, it's very long and fussy, and I believe "points" is by far the best term. Furthermore, "points" is the word always used to describe the locations in Backgammon, which bears some superficial similarity to the Sáhkku board.

Obviously, terms that are special to Sáhkku may be used and defined (as has already been done in several other cases), but I assume that "field" and "tile" are not special to Sáhkku, but rather meant to be general gaming terms.

In English, terms for types or shapes of dice or lots -- especially unusual traditional ones -- are pretty chaotic. However, I surmise that "rolling-pin" is a perfectly good Scandinavian term that just doesn't work for dice when translated into English. Personally, I prefer "long dice", but since there is already a Wikipedia entry for barrel dice this is probably our best option. ~~Or we might combine both with [[Barrel dice|long dice]].~~ Actually, I've just now updated and moved this page to Long dice (but we'll see if that lasts!). Phil wink (talk) 19:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that "points" and "squares" should be used in place of "fields" and "tiles", since these terms are used on the articles about Go, Backgammon, Nine Men's Morris and Chess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.91.198.127 (talk) 12:25, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As for the term "roling pin", it's just a way to describe the shape. In an article by P. Michaelsen (see link) the sáhkku and daldøs dice are referred to as "stick dice" [1]. That doesn't have an article, though... "Long dice" is probably entirely correct, and could be used, but the shape of the dice need to be described somehow, since just "long" or "stick" dice isn't all that descriptive in itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.91.198.127 (talk) 12:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm half Norwegian (by fairly distant ancestry... never been there) so I've heard plenty of "Norwegian jokes" -- and a Norwegian using a square rolling pin sounds like one of them. If I have some time, I might be able to make a passable diagram, and the text should indeed describe the dice -- say, as slightly elongated cubes (or square prisms) with little pyramids on the shorter ends to prevent landing on them. But likening them to a cylinder with handles (this is my experience of a rolling pin, even while making lefse) is anti-descriptive.

Regarding the term "stick dice": Not only Michaelsen, but even Irving Finkel uses this term, so I'm bound to accept it as appearing in the literature. However I personally dislike it, because I feel it creates confusion between what I call "long dice" (what we're talking about) and what I call "throwing staves" which are long 2-sided lots (often a round stick split down the middle) seen in traditional Native American, Arab, ancient Egyptian and Chinese games, and I trust many others. Cheers. Oh, and remember to sign your talk page comments with ~~~~; Wikipedians like that. Phil wink (talk) 18:11, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the comparison to a rolling pin is actually a bit misleading, now that you say it. I think I just found it described like that on the page for daldøs, which uses rather similar dice, and never questioned it. A diagram would probably be the best way to go, since these things are fairly difficult to describe. If you have the time to do that, it would improve the article greatly. 88.91.198.127 (talk) 07:29, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, after uploading this die image, I realize that I've somewhat "daldøs-ized" it, by making the marks into Roman numerals, which, according to the images in Borvo, are not really appropriate. I hope to fix this in time, but for now, hopefully this is better than nothing. Merry Christmas. Phil wink (talk) 18:39, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great work. Merry Christmas to you too. 88.91.198.127 (talk) 09:39, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More clarifications desired

I'd like to see a pronunciation key. As near as I can tell, "Sáhkku (SOCK-oh) is a ..." is about right, but surely the recent editor(s) will know much better than I.
We'll need a sentence or 2 on the movement of the king in Essence of the game:The king.
Likewise a clarification of the path... presumably under Essence of the game:The soldiers. (I'll probably make a graphic for this too, as it's helpful to see it.)
History should incorporate a summary of the information in Depaulis's article (link in References).
More citations are always welcome. I suspect that too many game articles on Wikipedia are just some guy's house rules; this article isn't, and we can prove it.

I can eventually get to this stuff, but I'm quite lazy, and (recent IP editor(s):) you've been doing such good work that maybe you want to keep going? Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, and thanks. I have now tried to address #2 and #3 in the text. Will get back to the others when there's time. Misha bb (talk) 23:09, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #1: The system you refer to appears to be made for English words, and is as such ill-suited to explain how words in Sámi are pronounced. I don't think it's possible to correctly render the final "u" in sáhkku by using that system. I'm no expert in IPA for North Sámi, but I think that would simply be /sahkku/, which doesn't give much more information than the official spelling... I guess the closest approximation for an English-speaker would be to say "sack", but with preaspiration before the "ck", and then finish with a short version of the "ous" from the word "rendezvous". Don't know if that was helpful or just really confusing, but it's the best I can do...Misha bb (talk) 16:21, 29 December 2015 (UTC)178.74.41.163 (talk) 15:56, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a start on the history section, but it's still a stub. Will get back to this.

A vexing problem (Where have pieces been in the past?)

As I began work on a "path" diagram, I realized that Sahkku (at least as described in Borvo) has a vexing problem (which I've also encountered elsewhere). Take a Sahkku board with these numbered spaces:

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15

If my home is row 01-15, then (according to Borvo) I move in the path 01-15, 15-16, 16-30, 30-31, 31-45, 45-16, 16-30, 30-01 ... (and I assume I continue in a figure-8 pattern, though this is not absolutely explicit in Borvo -- it's conceiveable that somehow my pieces just stay stuck back on their home row, but this would be shocking in a running-fight game). This same path is implied as the norm in the current article's Ráisá sáhkku section, when it states that the variant only continues to circle around the 2 larger-numbered rows, never returning home -- as opposed to the figure-8 pattern which it implies is the norm. Now, the Ráisá path makes sense to me. This is analogous to the Daldos path, and more or less analogous to Tab. But the "norm" drives me nuts: I may have several identical pieces on the middle row, some of which must go from 30 to 31, some of which must go from 30 to 01 based on where they've been in the past. I need an exact memory, not just of the history of all my own pieces to determine which way they go, but also of my opponent's pieces to catch infringements. Any disagreement is utterly unresolvable without video playback.

This leads me to question whether Borvo's (and I suppose Friis's) description of the path is really accurate. Can a game with such a built-in unresolvable conundrum really have thrived for centuries? Or am I just missing something?

Can anyone with personal experience, or access to other sources (I can only read English) shed light on this problem? Thanks! Phil wink (talk) 19:16, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is correct, as far as I’ve gathered from the sources, that normal gameplay involves moving the pieces in an 8-pattern which continues indefinitely.

If the pieces are round, or in some other way lack an identifiable “front” and “back” side, it can indeed be troublesome to remember if a piece is currently treading what we may call the type A path across the middle row (i.e. going up into the enemy row) or the type B path across the middle row (i.e. going down into the home row).

When playing the game in real life, it soon became clear that it was a definite advantage to use pieces that have a marked “front”. We have the fronts turned towards the direction the piece is moving when it is moving across the home row, treading the type A path across the middle row, and when it is moving across the enemy row. When a piece begins to tread the type B path on the middle row, we turn its front towards the home row to signify this.

In the same manner, we mark pieces as unactivated by having them turned so that the fronts face the middle row.

Did they do something akin to this in the olden days? It’s hard to tell from the written sources. But in my opinion, it gets so confusing to not have any indication as to whether a piece is treading path A or B, that I believe players must have had some way to signify it.

Note that in the picture illustrating this article, the “women” do in fact have a visible “front” (the direction that the hooked hat points). The “men” don’t seem to have it, although it is possible that some symbol has been cut into one of the sides, and that the camera simply hasn’t caught it. That is, however, speculation. In Borvo, pieces depicted on page 37 have notches cut into them on some of the sides, but not on all. But again, we do not know anything about whether or not differences between the sides of the pieces were in fact used to signify the direction they were heading.

All I can say for sure is that when actually playing the game, we’ve found it to be a great advantage to use pieces with a marked “front”, in the manner described above, to avoid confusion and disagreement. Misha bb (talk) 10:55, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note, by the way, that the way tâb is described, that game suffers a related problem:

“A piece moving to a square occupied by one or more friendly pieces is placed on top of those, and they move as one piece thereafter. If such a stack moves to a row where one of the pieces has been before, the stack is reduced to just one piece, the other pieces being removed from the board.“Misha bb (talk) 10:56, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great information. Thanks. we'll definitely work that in. I'm acutely aware of the Tab problem -- by chance, about a month ago, I finally started working on a paper which will attempt to solve (not certainly of course, merely probabalistically) what turns out to be several subtle interrelated problems, including the one you mentioned. This is why, when I started on Sahkku, I thought "MY GOD! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!" I should have guessed the turning bit, though, as Daldos has turning (just for activation of course). Thanks again. Phil wink (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]