Chess in Middle Earth ?

[Alcuin]

Part of the “willing suspension of disbelief” is that the story as we have it comes from the Red Book of Westmarch that belonged to the descendants of Elanor, Samwise Gardner’s daughter. A copy was made (says Tolkien) for King Elessar and Queen Arwen, and since it was taken to them by Peregrin Took, it was called “the Thain’s Book”. A revised copy of this, including Bilbo’s Translations from the Elvish, was prepared by the Gondorian scribe Findegil, and survived until at least Tolkien’s day, when he translated it for us as The Lord of the Rings.

In RotK, Appendix F, part II, “On Translation”, Tolkien wrote,

In presenting the matter of the Red Book, as a history for people of today to read, the whole of the linguistic setting has been translated as far as possible into terms of our own times. Only the languages alien to the Common Speech have been left in their original form; but these appear mainly in the names of persons and places.

The Common Speech, the language of the Hobbits and their narratives, has inevitably been turned into modern English. …

Thus “pawn”.