Today we are still familiar with the title “shah” as the rule of the Shah of Persia is not in such a distant past, although it has originated in the days of Parthian rulers. On the other hand, the word “satrap” has been used since antiquity to designate the governor of a Persian province.
A highly informative article has been published by Monique L. Cardell, “Shah, Satrap and Alexander the Great” on this subject, offering a thorough linguistic analysis of the very roots of these titles.
“Shah” is a Persian word for “king,”
with close links to the Sanskrit for “king” and “noble warrior.” The root word
in both languages applies to the power itself as well as to the kingdom. Still,
it also contains a reference to the Old Persian word for “satrap.” This word
is, in turn, very closely related to its Ionian translation meaning “to
exercise the power of a satrap,” hence the Greek word “satrap.” By extension,
the title of satrap means “the one who guards the kingdom,” i.e., a referral to
the highest official charged with the administration of the provinces or
satrapies. To put themselves above the satraps or “small” kings, the rulers of
From the Arabs, who also used the word “shah,” we got a different heritage that is to be found in our chess game. A slight deformation in the pronunciation led to “check-mate,” literally meaning “the king is dead.”
The Indians, on the other hand, considered Alexander and his officers as “noble warriors.” In this country, however, “shah” has become a common name used as a first name as well, which stands for ‘force” just as “Iskander” (from Alexander) means “invincible.”
This is a linguistic approach, of course, but not unfounded since all these languages, Greek, Persian, Indian, and Latin (except Arabic), belong to the same Indo-European group.
In short, this means that Alexander had several titles to go by. He was King of
Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Kings in
The Arabic language does not belong to the Indo-European group like Greek, Persian and Latin. It is a Semitic group language. What does Arabic have to do with this discussion anyway? Chess is Indo-Iranian, Arabs just inherited it during the time of the Arab occupation of Iran.
ReplyDeleteI corrected my text by taking Arabic out of the Indo-European context. Thanks for catching the mistake!
DeleteThe word "mate" in checkmate is Arabic, which means dead. Shah-mate (shah is dead) got corrupted into checkmate in English.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting linguistic detail. Thank you for sharing.
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