My casual sentiment on Xiangqi being considered a "variant"

You've since been permanently banned (or decided to close your account yourself before you do), so it matters little what trivial grammatical faults have I. *thumbs up*

But, you'll probably come back with a new sockpuppet account and a new sockpuppet personality, drudgin' up old bitter bicker sessions with me, right?

Excellent thread. I thought I was the only Xiangqi dabbler left. You capture and summarize the "variant" debate most exquisitely. Cheers my good friend.

Thank you, Guy-Pin-Azul. 

Xiangqi has been a favorite Chess of mine for a while now. I've even created an actual variant to it. haha

An ACTUAL variant to xiangqi?? Oh my word, do tell more old Chap!!

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/dragon-chess-ii-game-of-conquer-my-own-variation-to-an-existing-variant

My Xiangqi variant ^^^^

^-^

edited out

Tiger-Woodie's sockpuppet account, which he created after he either deleted his Tiger-Woodie account or got it permanently banned by a mod (no matter), has, once again, been deleted by a mod.

Carry on.

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/variant-suggestion-chinese-chess-xiangqi?page=1#comment-56222252

actually, 象 means elephant, referring to one of the pieces from 象棋

(click that for a wikipedia link)

and 棋 means "Chess"

so it would translate to "Elephant Chess"

No, not really. It is more complex than that. That character 象 means Elephant but not only that. It also means image, symbol, portrait among others. Then both sinograms have to be taken together and they just mean the game of xiangqi, that's all. The fact that it is translated by "chess" is not meaningful to a common Chinese who knows what xianqgi is but not what chess is.  "Image chess" would be more exact. The proof is that the "elephant" of the other side is not an elephant, it is a minister 相. There is a lot of literature covering this point: Leventhal, Banaschak, and recently Jim Png. There is also a theory explaining why the sinogram 象 is used for one side, I have developed it in my book A World of Chess, but it is a bit too long to be exposed here.

Yes. In Chinese, "Elephant" also serves as a metaphor for image and "self"-worth. 

However, 象棋 in fact does refer to the Elephant; "Elephant Game" is what Xiangqi/JoeungKei means. I'm not sure if "Image" has anything to do with it. Of course, I could be wrong. Linkes and references would be nice.

I gave references in my preceding post. Leventhal, Banaschak, and recently Jim Png's works. There is a wide coverage also in my own book.
Be careful. I don't deny that today 象棋 is perceived as Elephant game. It doesn't mean that it was the etymological sense. (象棋 was meaningful in China centuries before than "our" Western chess was known there). For that old literature has too be consulted. Which leads to the authors I have mentioned.

Imagine you are an intellectual in the China of the 8th or 9th century. Two intellectual games were admired, 圍棋 wei qi and 象棋 xiangqi. Both played with round tokens on the points of a board. The fact that xiangqi uses symbolic tokens is a striking difference what may explain the use of 象 as a qualificative.

One must understand the following logic link:

0. Definition of Variant by Merriam-Webster:

Definition of variant
 (Entry 1 of 2)
1: manifesting variety, deviation, or disagreement
2: varying usually slightly from the standard
3obsolete : VARIABLE
variant

 noun
Definition of variant (Entry 2 of 2)
: one of two or more persons or things exhibiting usually slight differences: such as
a: one that exhibits variation from a type or norm
b: one of two or more different spellings (such as labor and labour) or pronunciations (as of economics \ek-, ēk-\) of the same word
c: one of two or more words (such as geographic and geographical) or word elements (such as mon- and mono-) of essentially the same meaning differing only in the presence or absence of an affix

1. Chinese Chess is developed without Western assistance.

2. Chess is developed without Chinese assistance(by this word I mean influence of any sort)

3. Their similarity is because they are derived from Chaturanga, their common ancestor.

4. Therefore, Chinese Chess should not be a variant of International Chess because it is not based on International Chess. 

5. It enrages Chinese people because the Chinese translation, 变种 or 变体 refers to definition 1.2 of Merriam-Webster:

"2: varying usually slightly from the standard"

While Western people find it not understandable, because they usually, in Western Context, refers to:

"one of two or more persons or things exhibiting usually slight differences"

And one may not that "slight differences" doesn't mean that the latter is based on the former. However, in Chinese context, the word 变体does, meaning that the Variant is BASED on the standard chess, which enrages Chinese people since we believe that this is our invention and a national symbol of Chinese wit, philosophy and culture. Therefore, we feel enraged when others say Chinese Chess is Based On Western Chess, while other people find that not understandable.

What makes your argument irrelevant is that it assumes that 'chess variant' means 'variant of western chess'. But that is just something you made up yourself. But western chess itself is already a variant of the broader concept of chess, which started with Chaturanga.

No one who says Xiangqi is a chess variant means that it was derived from modern western chess. They always mean that international chess and Xiangqi have the same roots.

Look, I'm explaining why Chinese people are mad about this. I understand your point, but I'm exclusively talking about the Chinese context, which makes Chinese people mad. I also understand that "They always mean that international chess and Xiangqi have the same roots." That's a difference of English and Chinese.

Well, if they translate it wrongly and then get angry about their own translation, that is not our responsibility.

It's not the translator's fault. Let me explain.

Variant's root is vary. Vary means change. Therefore we translate it into 变, which literally means Change.

Variant is a noun meaning something varying from something else. It is a reasonable translation to translate variant into 变种. Normally the slight change wouldn't be a problem, but still we get mad at it.

Stop all the tantrum and be clear that this is just a translation misunderstanding.

I agree, Xiangqi is way too original to be considered a chess variant

The issue isn't that it's "original". It's that it's a standard chess game in a different regional culture.

But, to be fair, @HGMuller makes a decent point, also. All chess games are, according to him, variations of each other, so "variant" is a rightful description. The "regular" chess that we play is also considered a "variant", because it is yet another variation of the Chaturanga game; which, too, is the original "variant".

That ^^^ is at least according to @HGMuller.

Okay