The same game, a different name
Almost every country that plays this game calls it something else, and most of those names simply mean “mill” in the local language. One of them is a genuinely different game.
- MühleGerman · Germany, Austria, SwitzerlandThe German name, and the source of Zwickmühle — a word for the double mill that ordinary German uses to mean a no-win dilemma.
- MorabarabaSotho and Tswana · South Africa, Lesotho, BotswanaThe Southern African game: twelve pieces, four extra diagonal lines, pieces called cows, and organised league competition.
- MerelsEnglish, from Old French · Britain, and the medieval recordThe old English name — also merrills or morris — and the reason Shakespeare wrote about a board cut into a village green.
- नवकंकरीHindi, from Sanskrit · IndiaSanskrit for “nine pebbles”, and the name Indian sellers print on the box — with a different word in almost every Indian language.
The other names
Several more names exist without yet having a page here, because a page that is another page with the word swapped is worth nothing to anybody.
- molenspel Dutch
- mølle Danish
- kvarn Swedish
- mylna Icelandic
- mulinello Italian
- molino Spanish
- młynek Polish
- malom Hungarian
- mlýn Czech
- değirmen Turkish
The pattern is hard to miss: wherever the game travelled, it was named after the shape of the board rather than after anything it was called where it came from. Each of these gets its own page when there is something specific to say about how it is played there, and not before.
Whatever you call it, the rules are on how to play, and you can play it now against somebody on Nine Mills.