De Ludis Orientalibus Libri Duo

De Ludis Orientalibus Libri Duo^[1]: Historia Nerdiludii^[2], hoc est dicere trunculorum cum quibusdam aliis … (Two Books on Oriental Games: description of the history of Backgammon … and various others) is a two volume 1694 Latin work by Thomas Hyde with about six pages on Go^[2], De Circumveniendi Ludo Chinensium^[3], pp. 195–201, though it is mainly about board games such as chess (in many forms, including Chinese) and backgammon and even seems to include physical games such as Blind man’s Buff (De Collabismo, Vol II p. 265).

Its portion discussing Go received a translation and five-page article by Charles Leedham-Green in BGJ 192 (Summer 2020) ( view).

The original text can be read for free on Google books.

(PJT)This links to the page, but does not at first allow one to scroll beyond page 197, but after about 20 Page Downs it relents; can anyone fix this?

Not only is it in (fairly simple) Latin, it also includes extensive quotes in languages such as Hebrew, Arabic and Greek, and the odd word in languages such as Armenian and Sanskrit.

Notes

[1] The game is described in volume one, not volume two, as this article and perhaps its title originally suggested.

[2] The Nerdiludium article in the Latin Wikipedia is about backgammon, one of the games described by Hyde and is linked to the corresponding article in English Wikipedia.

[3] One notes that Hyde describes Go as a “surrounding” rather than a territory building game!