Tuireann:
So, I don't think Alea Evangelli is a tafl game anymore at all. I have been doing some translations of MS 122 and eventually it occured to me to look into what the name of the game means in latin... Alea means a game involving dice or gambling...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alea#Latin
like... Gospel Gambling
I dont think this is a tafl game at all... just radial symmetry on a diagram and wishful thinking...
Fishbreath:
Certainly, the manuscript is more an allegory than a description of rules, but I would wager heavily on a pre-existing large tafl board underpinning it.
Too, 'a game of chance' is the most straightforward definition of alea, but misses some nuance.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... try%3Dalea
Tuireann:
well theres the backup of it being written in insular script in the 12th centure which places it in ireland
and then there are sources which define alea as tabula in irish glossaries in that time
i have to imagine that between isidore of sevilles manuscript which covered alea
and those sources
plus if the game was invented by a frank and israel the grammarion which i found some compelling theories he was a breton or at least mainland european i dunno why he would create anything with a tafl game
i just think its coincidence
its like the 400AD thing thats been claimed about tafls origins... i think its looking at something which resembles tafl and then thinking wishfully
theres a pretty good analysis of the latin in a book i actually found the entire portions of the tafl sections on google books
i cant link to the exact page
https://books.google.com/books?id=7rEkO ... &q&f=false
if you search tafl in there they have a huge section at the end of the tafl chapter about comparing the terminology with other sources
also latin + latin sigla + insular script = awful nightmare
a language where every word has 20 meanings and every author has their own style of writing in a script with hundreds of shorthand versions of words that are not well defined... and we have someone referencing a manuscript from over a century prior...
i really think its a game that a frank and some other mainland european monk made from tables (backgammon precursor)
it really is a shame that so little is known about tafl
aw wtf cant link this because the link is longer than the message max
i need to bump that up a bit
https://goo.gl/cRfooe
pg 371 IX. that alea means dice in such a way that he has to distinguish it from tabula really makes me think any monk who created a game and named it effectively Gospel Dice had to know, its not like Isidore was unknown
if we had the Dub Innse manuscript that the git who wrote 122 was referencing we would just know
stupid books... getting lost...
also i have high res pictures of MS 122 if anyone wants them
Fishbreath:
True that, but I think the alea in alea evangelii is probably used more metaphorically—not to mean dice or a dice game, but a venture of uncertain outcome
Makes more sense with the theme/historically.
Tuireann:
i dunno man, etymologically it just seems shaky
Fishbreath:
Alea with that connotation is very well attested historically.
Tuireann:
what? dice?
i also have a lack of trust in murray since he has several other instances of confirmation bias in his section on tafl games
Fishbreath:
No, a risky venture (a metaphorical gamble)
At any rate, I don't think the name of alea evangelii is important in evaluating whether it's based on a real tafl game.
Tuireann:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alea_(Greek_soldier)
i think the name is a pretty big component of the pieces we have since we have so little
Fishbreath:
It's clearly an allegory based on something pre-existing. The name is for the allegory, not for the game.
Tuireann:
i mean its possible the latin is poorly translated when someone looked at the text but it does seem to imply the name of the game as given in the referenced manuscript is alea evangelii