The origin of a word gives us information on the world behind that word. Germanic people for instance knew how to make cheese and invented a word for their product. The Romans brought an unknown method of cheese preparation. We know it because the Germans bor- rowed the Roman word caseus > Eng. cheese, which is only plausible if they borrowed the method too. For this reason the introduction of the etymological approach can yield useful information on board games.

For example on the reality behind the medieval Spanish word al- querque, that was supposed to be from Arabic origin. Linguistic re- search shows this was wrong: the word alquerque is from Roman prove- nance. We should seek, consequently, the origin of the game alquerque in a civilization under Roman influence.