Saturday, November 22, 2014

Mus

Mus is a Spanish card game, widely played in Spain and Hispanic America, and to a lesser extent in France. Most probably it originated in the Basque Country. The first reference about this game goes back to 1745, when Manuel Larramendi, philologist and Jesuit basque, quoted it the trilingual dictionary (Basque-Spanish-Latin).
In Spain it is the most played card game, with many Mus clubs or "peñas. The origin of the word Mus is uncertain. It could come from the Basque language, where "musu" means "kiss", the established signal of the better possible card combination (3 Kings and one Ace).  Larramendi wrote about the word mus or "musu" meaning lips or face and suggests that the name of the game could have derived from the facial gestures used while playing.]
Following another theory, the word mus comes from the latin "musso", that means "keep silent". It is conjugated as "mus" ("I keep silent"), in opposition to "talk", that is the word used to open the game.

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