There are four types of Latin suits: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and an extinct archaic type. They are the earliest suit-system in Europe, and were adopted from the cards imported from Mamluk Egypt and Moorish Granada in the 1370s. The Latin suits are coins, clubs, cups, and swords. These Turko-Arabic cards, called Kanjifa, used the suits coins, clubs, cups, and swords, but the clubs represented polo sticks Europeans changed that suit, as polo was an obscure sport to them. The inverting of suits had no purpose in terms of play but was an artifact from the earliest games. This was also true for the European games of Tarot and Ombre. In the Indo-Persian game of Ganjifa, half the suits were also inverted, including a suit of coins. In many early Chinese games like Madiao, the suit of coins was in reverse order so that the lower ones beat the higher ones. Another clue linking these Chinese, Muslim, and European cards are the ranking of certain suits. The Chinese numeral character for Ten ( 十) on the Tens of Myriads suit may have inspired the Muslim suit of swords. The Muslims renamed the suit of myriads as cups this may have been due to seeing a Chinese character for 'myriad' ( 万) upside-down. A string of coins could easily be misinterpreted as a stick to those unfamiliar with them.īy then the Islamic world had spread into Central Asia and had contacted China, and had adopted playing cards. Old Chinese coins had holes in the middle to allow them to be strung together.

The money-suit system is based on denominations of currency: Coins, Strings of Coins, Myriads of Strings (or of coins), and Tens of Myriads. The concept of suits predates playing cards and can be found in Chinese dice and domino games such as Tien Gow.Ĭhinese money-suited cards are believed to be the oldest ancestor to the Latin suit system. A card of one suit cannot beat a card from another regardless of its rank. The earliest card games were trick-taking games and the invention of suits increased the level of strategy and depth in these games. Main articles: Italian playing cards, Spanish-suited playing cards, and Portuguese-suited playing cards Latin card suits Origin and development of the Latin suits The French suits are a derivative of the German suits but are generally considered a separate system. The younger Germanic suits are subdivided into the German and Swiss suit-systems.

The older Latin suits are subdivided into the Italian and Spanish suit-systems. Modern Western playing cards are generally divided into two or three general suit-systems. Tarot card packs have a set of distinct picture cards alongside the traditional four suits. Asian countries such as China and Japan also have their own traditional suits. Much of central Europe uses German suited cards with suits of Acorns, Leaves, Hearts and Bells Spain and parts of Italy and South America use Spanish suited cards with their suits of Swords, Batons, Cups and Coins German Switzerland uses Swiss suited cards with Acorns, Shields, yellow Roses and Bells and many parts of Italy use Italian suited cards which have the same suits but different patterns compared with Spanish suited cards.

While English-speaking countries traditionally use cards with the French suits of Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds, many other countries have their own traditional suits. A deck may include special cards that belong to no suit, often called jokers. In a single deck, there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit. Ranking indicates which cards within a suit are better, higher or more valuable than others, whereas there is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific card game. The rank for each card is determined by the number of pips on it, except on face cards. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card. In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols. This article contains suit card Unicode characters.

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