SpecGammon
An Historical Appreciation

by Tab L. Gaîmes, Ph.D.
Department of Ludic Studies
Tshessen Tshekirz University, Tshicago

For younger readers who missed out on the heyday of SpecGammon—before video games and consoles and the internet, when real people had to sit down together and play real games at a real table—this was once one of the most popular games in the world. I won’t go over all of the rules—which will be close to the hearts of readers of a certain age, and lost on the youth—but I will give you a taste of the flavor of the game.

The playing pieces are known by many names in different regions, including drawls, tones, puns, discourses, or lips. The goal of the game is to remove (off-glide) your own pieces from the board before your opponent does so.

Moves are made by rolling the vowel dice and creating phonotactically acceptable syllable structures from the available consonantal pieces. Opponents’ pieces move in opposite directions (cross phonation), giving many opportunities for interaction (conversation). In addition to moving your own pieces around the board, if you land on an opponent’s singleton piece (phonating a glot) you can send it back to the beginning of the board.

There is also a reduplicating die, a mysterious die with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 σ’s on its sides. Only the oldest of old timers know what it is for.

A modern SpecGammon board

The history of SpecGammon is murky at best. Some like to claim—based on the similarity of the game’s name to the name of this very journal—that there is a relationship to SpecGram, but there is no credible historical evidence of that. But, admittedly, it probably did help get this article accepted for publication. [Maybe just a little. —Eds.]

We do know that very similar boards have been found dating back to at least the early 17th century, such as that found on the wreck of the Esperanto Warship Ĉu-Ne, which sank in 1628.

SpecGammon board recovered from the wreck of the Esperanto Warship Ĉu-Ne, sunk in 1628

There is even speculation that the game may have evolved from a Roman game known as ludus linguum duodecim scriptorum (“language game of twelve lines”), which seems plausible, but too many details have been lost to history.

A Roman ludus linguum duodecim scriptorum board from the 2nd century, featuring the Old Italic Alphabet

Modern critics argue that the game is “unnecessarily complex” and “linguistically exhausting”, but these are usually people—mere internet pundits for the most part—who cannot tell a pun from a Pop Tart. Whether it evolved from the Roman lines or emerged spontaneously in the 17th-century, SpecGammon remains the pinnacle of gamified ludic philology.

Despite the game’s decline, a small but vocal group of SpecGammon purists still gather in dimly lit faculty lounges to argue over whether a voiced post-alveolar fricative plus rounded open-mid central vowel constitutes a legal opening move. While the youth may prefer their mindless digital blips, they will never know the tactile satisfaction of physically off-gliding a drawl while staring down a bitter rival. Some things, like a perfectly uttered syllable, are simply timeless.

	Folk Linguistics—The SpecGram Folklore Elves™
	Dimensional Feature Analysis of English Prepositions—CJ Quines
	SpecGram Vol CXCV, No 3 Contents