However one thing has intrigued me for a long time. As a child, my mother sometimes allowed me to play with small wooden circular pieces of wood, with a number written on it. And she referred to those small discs as being part of a Kien (pronounce Keen) game.
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The origin of the game lies in Italy, where it was played around 1530 as Lotto. The word Bingo is derived from the American version of the game, which was played in the twenties on a form called Beano. The word Beano in itself is derived from the beans which were used to cover the numbers on the card. Hence Beano was corrupted to Bingo.
The Dutch word Kien is derived from the French word Quine, which comes from the Latin word Quini (= 5), and which refers to the 5 numbers on each row of a Loto card. The forms used as well as the rules of the game seem to vary per nationality.
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The Americans, as the Dutch (Bingo), play on a form of 5 x 5 squares, whereby the square in the middle does not contain a number. The 24 numbers (between 1 and 75) are either randomly put on the form, or sorted per column (1-15, 16-30, etc.). Here one can also play per row, per column, per square or per any other form determined beforehand, or of course, per full card.
And all this, because I was curious about the relation between the words Kien and Quine!
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle
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