Chess Informant Language

Hello, All.

How much Serbian (or other) language do I need to be able to read to get the most out of the Chess Informant? I reallize that, to a certain extent, the publication transcends language barriers, but I do not know to what degree.

What languages are the articles in?  Any other information on the publication would be very helpful.  Thanks.

My guess is you don't need to learn any Serbian (might be fun though). Take a look for yourself at a sample.

Ah, thanks.  I am a little surprised by this for a couple of reasons.  1) I thought Chess Informant had more written annotation, not just position evaluations, and 2) it seems like the articles may be exclusively (or largely) in English.  Hmmm...

No knowledge of Serbian is necessary for any Chess Informant publications. The old Informants are entirely in figurine algebraic and symbols, with explanations of the meaning of the symbols in multiple languages.

The new Informants have prose articles in English. See my review: http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-new-informants.html

It is striking how well human thought processes can be represented via Informant symbols. 

Boxes, arrows, circles, ... 

The Informant code system articulates far more than position evaluations. 

The Informants were the original data bases for us old timers ... 

Haha.  I somehow feel us youths can learn a thing or two about a thing or two by studying this publication.  Any thoughts, Rex?

That's a funny mental image. 

Thanks, James.  I suppose there is a key for the symbols in each informant.  I was thinking about getting a random copy of one issue to see whether it would be worth while buying the disc with editions 1-100 on it.  Any opinion?

I recommend getting one issue first and see how you like it. Old copies are easy to find (I've seen them on tables free, or nearly so).

I started with Informant 64 in the late 1990s. I'd had the opportunity to browse some issues at a tournament in November 1996, and bought an issue within the next month or so.

I have 1-123 in electronic issues, but only a small number in print.

Excellent.  I don't fancy myself a Luddite, but the feeling I get when seeing in-print books is enough to make me e-averse, so to speak.  

I think the informants still have value but I am biased towards books since I started playing in 73 and didnt have a computer until 96 . I have about 50 informants in book form and more than the first 100 issues on disk .  I probably won't add more informants to my collection since I no longer study chess as I once did . Ofcourse if you have 100 informants on a disk it takes up much less room than 100 books do and the disk is a LOT cheaper than 100 informants/books !  With the databases now though it doesnt seem necessary to have both ...