162 - A new article in the scholarly journal “Language” proposes that the word “chess” has been in use in English much longer than we once believed, and that its pronunciation was incorrectly altered during the Renaissance. The article’s author, linguist and chess player Petra Smityu, states that “chess” should really be pronounced “cheese.” The abstract for the article, which will be published this month, follows: "Modern linguists are familiar with the traditional theory that the word “chess” came into the English language during the late Middle English period (1400 – 1500). The Persian word “shah” was borrowed into Arabic, and was probably then introduced to Old Spanish during the repeated invasions of the Moors into the Iberian Peninsula. The word is next attested in Old French, as “eschec” (cf. Modern French “échecs”), with the plural form “esches.” The first documented English word for chess, “ches,” is traditionally believed to be a shortening of the Old French plural “esches,” adopted into English in the late 16th century. This date is not documented, but has until now been assumed to be accurate due to the fact that the mid-vowel [e] of “chess” was not raised to [i] during the Great Vowel Shift. This paper explores the relevant historical documents, showing that this adoption occured much earlier than the traditional theories suggest, and that “chess” was, indeed, subject to the phonetic changes of the Great Vowel Shift. Monastic documents from the 14th century show that “ches” was already in use in English at this time, and the personal letters of members of Henry VII’s court show divergent orthographies for the word. This documentation suggests that “ches” was borrowed into Middle English before the Great Vowel Shift, and was already undergoing phonetic change by the time of Henry’s reign. Furthermore, historical events support the theory that Old French words came into English at a much earlier date. With the invasion of Willam the Conquerer in 1066, French became the official language of the dominant culture in England. For almost 150 years, French exerted extensive influence over English, as attested by the vast number of French loanwords in Modern English which date from this time period. After King John lost the province of Normandy in 1204, however, French influence on English society and language began to decline, rapidly. It is therefore likely that “ches” was borrowed into English no later than the 14th century. It will be shown that the modern pronunciation of “chess” is not historically accurate, reflecting instead a prescriptive change that was instituted during the Renaissance period in an attempt to move Modern English pronunciation closer to that of French and Latin. The correct pronunciation of “chess” in Modern English, it will be shown, should reflect the raising of the mid-vowel [e] which occured in the Great Vowel Shift. Along with Chaucer’s “speche,” the Middle English word “ches” should today be pronounced with the high vowel [i] and spelled with a double <e>. Just as “speche” became “speech,” “ches” became “cheese.” Dr. Patricia Trower, PhD Oxford, England