Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "
sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the gameplay. The word
mancala (منقلة) comes from the
Arabic word
naqala (نقلة) meaning literally "to move". No one game exists with the name
mancala; the name is a classification or type of game. This word is used in
Syria,
Lebanon, and
Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game.