Is Chess the Universal Language?

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If music is the universal language I’m wondering if chess is a universal exercise, game, pursuit, discipline, etc. Chess.com has allowed me to play with individuals from all regions of the world and for this i am grateful. 

Two individuals who otherwise cannot speak a common audible language can share a chess board and work along common rows, columns and lines with an understanding of the other’s thoughts. It’s pretty amazing to ponder.

I wonder, if each square represented a tone or if a series of moves created musical intervals, what songs could be created?

Is it possible to move this thread to Off Topic? Perhaps i should posted it there. 

I find very interesting your idea of chess as an universal lenguage. I'm agree with you because no matter if you play with some one who talks another verbal lenguage, in the chess board we all play in the same symphony.

Also putting tones to each square of the board would be very absorbing. Creating uniques and unrepeatables melodies at each game played

Very interesting concept, with the squares representing musical tones...I definitely agree chess is a universal language, I personally have played while traveling and the games were as enjoyable as at home. I also like the history and etymology of the game and how languages like German and French are incorporated.

Your symphony analogy is spot on! I suppose someone has attempted it before and i just haven’t discovered their study.

I agree with you, every game would have unique musical characteristics. By processing the tones one could recreate a given game with precision. The time between moves could be used to distinguish the tempo of both the game and sounds. Could this be a way to assist vision challenged persons in learning chess? 

Perhaps if more played chess we could find understanding and acceptance of one another. I’d loosely compare it to sign language. Verbal communication is replaced by hand signals, similar to a series of moves OTB. Not only is non-verbal communication occurring, both players are ‘reading’ the other’s mind and thoughts. At least trying to. 

This has been considered before I'm sure. In fact, I just came from posting about natural language vs artificial language in another chess.com forum; this is like deja vu, but I'll mention it here too.

Natural languages are what we normally think of (English, Spanish, French and so on). Artificial languages are ways of communicating even though they aren't languages in the same sense. Some examples of artificial languages are: Binary Code, HTML 5, 1st order logic and many others. 

Chess is certainly an artificial language because of the notation "appearing foreign" to non-chess players, the non-verbal communication among chess players at the chess board and because of the chess terms that all chess players (for the most part) seem to know (like en passant, or fork, of zugswang etc.).

Following this definition above, chess is most certainly a language.

p.s. Music and art are prime examples of artificial languages too, so chess certainly falls into the same category.

The link below is a great example of music as non-verbal language. I hope I’m not violating rule by adding the link, I’m not advertising anything beyond this man’s incredible life, story, and work. 

https://jasonbecker.com

Nice! All excellent examples of what I’ve been pondering. Thank you for posting!

Glad to contribute to this forum thread

By the way, there is nothing wrong with advertising via hyperlinks (that is why chess.com even has a button for creating hyperlinks in messages!). Chess.com only has a problem with advertising competing chess sites in the public forums and with spamming (such as advertisements) , especially when the advertising is off topic and not posted in the correct place. Nothing wrong with sharing someone's life story/work

Thank you for the kind words! 

Thank you for the clarification! 

I don´t think it would be a very viable metod, beacuse maybe the person who is trying to learn chess, havent the ability or the practice to distinguish sound or melodies, it would be very interesting of course, but in my opinion it would require a lot of more time to learn the game.

Agree with you, and also it has to be in the olympics.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-che-music-formula