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by livrem 701 days ago
I like mazes and I saw that distinction be made before, but I am not sure how universally accepted it is? Other than English how many languages even have two different words? I spent some time now on Google Translate and the only language I find (not that I tried ALL) is Finnish. Modern Greek for instance uses the same word (assuming Google is correct), so did people on Crete, whatever their language was, even have two different words?
1 comments

This is an edge case which google translate is going to be bad at. You can at a minimum add dutch to your dataset: doolhof vs labyrint.
But Google Translate is correct about Dutch. It was just not one of the languages I tried before. I do not think it is a particularly difficult case for translation.

The reason I checked was in my native Swedish there is only one word (labyrint).

Was it really always two different things even in English? I looked the words up in Gutenberg's public domain Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1890?) a labyrinth there was "an ornamental maze" ... "Labyrinth, originally; the name of an edifice or excavation, carries the idea of design, and construction in a permanent form, while maze is used of anything confused or confusing, whether fixed or shifting. We speak of the labyrinth of the ear, or of the mind, and of a labyrinth of difficulties; but of the mazes of the dance, the mazes of political intrigue, or of the mind being in a maze." And from the definition of maze: "A confusing and baffling network, as of paths or passages; an intricacy; a labyrinth". Did the meaning drift a bit since then or was it only in mathematics that the words began to be used in the way that they are often used now for branching vs non-branching mazes?

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29765