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?
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?
