games
I was talking with my trukish colleagues the other day, and we spoke of games, and they remembered backgammon, and started counting in persian, and wondered how come they used these words and not other... here is what i found on history of games like chess and backgammon...
Chess
Chess is first mentioned in texts dating from the early centuries of the common era, when the Sasanian dynasty ( A.D. 224-651) ruled all of Mesopotamia, Iran, and much of Central Asia. The Sasanians wrote in the language known as Middle Persian, ancestral to the modern Persian spoken today in Iran and adjacent countries.
Backgammon
One of the few surviving literary texts in Middle Persian is The Explanation of Chess and Invention of Backgammon. Although written sometime in the ninth century, it describes events from the sixth century and probably preserves an oral tradiion. From this text we learn of a fateful visit to the court of the great Sasanian ruler Khusraw I (reigned 531-579), who is the "king of kings" mentioned in the story.
They say that, in the reign of Khusraw of the Immortal Soul, a chess game (16 counters of emerald and 16 counters of rud ruby) was sent by Dewisharm, great ruler of the Indians, to test the intelligence and wisdom of the Iranians and to see to his own profit... In a letter had been written: "Since you are named as king of kings, as king of kings over us all, it is necessary that your wise men be wiser than ours. [It is so] if you explain the rationale of this chess; otherwise you send tribute [and] taxes!"
According to the story, the Persian king asked for four days to respond to Dewisharm's challenge. None of the wise men of his realm came forth to offer a solution, until on the third day Wuzurg-Mihr rose to his feet and announced that he could easily explain the rationale of the chess. In addition, he would devise and send Dewisharm something the Indian ruler "will not be able to explain" and so demand a tribute in addition to the one now before the Persian king. As Wuzurg-Mihr deduced:
Dewisharm has fashioned this chess like a battle in meaning: He has made the kings like two princes, the chariots to left and right like the van, a general like the commander of the warriors, the elephants like the commander of the body guards, the horses like the commander of cavalry, the foot-soldiers like the very infantry at the front of the attack.
Wuzurg-Mihr then played three games of chess with the Indian sage who had brought the chess set, and won three victories. The tribute accompanying the game - 1,200 camel loads of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, and robes, and 90 elephants - was given to the Persian king.
