The animal we call elk in North America, Cervus canadensis, is also known as a wapiti. Wapiti do not exist in Europe, only in North America and East Asia.
I find it a bit weird that Europeans go "well actually, this animal (that we don't have) should be called by the Shawnee/Cree name, wapiti." But then also find fault in using an indigenous American name for moose.
People finding fault in us using the native term moose is the bit I have a problem with. I've got no issue with switching to using indigenous American names for both.
But the reason European (early American) settlers applied the name elk to the "wrong" animal was because they had been hunted to local extinction across almost all of Europe by then. So when settlers saw their first big deer species they were like "so this must be what an elk looks like." Then when they found a bigger deer species (moose/elk) they needed to borrow a name since they had already used "elk."
Europe has made a lot of recent progress in the reintroduction of moose/elk into the wild which is fantastic. And obviously Europeans can use whatever name they want. But like, should European traditions get to demand everyone uses their "native" name when they had wiped the animal off their continent to the point that they could not recognize one when they got to America?
The question is, can the English language have two words for the same animal and the same word for a different one. And the answer is yes, because language does not follow logic. The American English is not the „right“ English, there are different countries in the world, that speak English too, but are using different terms. It is the same with other languages which are spoken in different regions of the world. It is not like the rest of the world has to adapt to the American way of saying things.
Alces alces has been called elk since before even Old English developed. Alces and elk are literally cognates.
Settlers misidentified cervus canadensis as alces alces, and so gave it the wrong name.
Cervus canadensis was only recently derermined to be a separare species to cervus elaphus, and before that all very large "subspecies" of cervus elaphus were called maral in Asia and by European scholars (most of these very large subspecies turned out to be subspecies of canadensis, not elaphus). Maral being a Mongolian word spread to many languages by their empire.
Of course, none of that information was exactly available to the settlers, so we've ended up adopting the Cree words moos and waapiti as moose and wapiti for the North American species (and wapiti is becoming more and more common for canadensis worldwide).
They're prescribing that Americans suddenly start calling elk "wapiti", even though probably 99% of North Americans have never even heard that word before.
Euros don't have elk, had culturally forgotten what a moose is (due to massive overhunting and habitat loss), and are now blaming Americans for European ignorance.
British colonists reached North America and decided to call a type of deer native to North America, that weren't elks, that the Cree and Shawnee called wapiti, elks. And to avoid confusion with actual elks, which also live in North America, they started to call those moose.
As a Brit I would say moose and elk as per the North American terminology, but I also saw both in the US/Canada first respectively so that could have been an influence.
It's also because the primary way the language interacts with them is with the Amercian names. Obviously there aren't any wapiti in Europe, and Moose went extinct in the British isles at least 3600 years ago. People in the UK and Ireland have very little reason to ever mention an elk, while people from the US and especially Canada have plenty of reasons to talk about moose.
You're some kind of special or something ? Languages have different words for designating things. What you guys call a moose we call it an elk in Europe. What you call an elk, is called wapiti in French, German, and various other European languages.
In fact, Americans are the only people calling elks "moose", as per many other things. Elks were called elks in Europe way before America was discovered, and before some dimmed witted pilgrim started to call them "moose". So no, Americans don't get to tell how to call creatures named long before their country even existed.
Moose(AE)/Elks(BE) are the largest deer species. Biologically there is not a big difference between the different eurasian and american populations. They are the same species but different subspecies.
Elks(AE)/Wapiti(BE) are the second largest deer species and they only exist in north america.
We have both Moose and Elk in America, different names for different animals. A moose is a big ass fucker, an Elk is bigger than a deer but smaller than a moose.
So what do you call the thing we call an Elk, if you call what we call Moose as Elk?
When the British started colonizing North America, "elk" was typically used to describe large deer. In Europe, the largest deer was Alces alces. The first large deer British colonists encountered in North America was a different species, Cervus canadensis, so they called those elk. Later, the colonists found that Alces alces also existed in North America, and to differentiate them from what they were already calling elk, the adopted the name of the animal from local Algonquian speaking Native groups: Moose.
Moose and Elk aren’t the same thing HOWEVER: what Americans call Moose and Euros call Elk are indeed the same animal. But what Americans call an Elk is a totally different animal than what the euros call an elk (which is a moose). It’s a goofy linguistics thing where the terms are interchangeable sometimes.
American moose = European Elk
European Elk ≠ American Elk
American Elk ≠ American Moose
So, the reason is that the early English settlers hadn't actually seen an elk or a maral before, but they'd heard of elk. So when they got to North America and a maral, because it seemed to fit the description "a deer the size of a horse", they mistook it for an elk. Years later, they saw actual elk, but they were already used to calling marals elk; their solution was to borrow the local name for alces alces, and now they know them as moose.
(Maral is a Mongolian name for deer, and was used by lots of languages in their sphere to refer to cervus canadensis; awkwardly, it's also used as a name for a subspecies of cervus elaphus, which has led to the Cree derived "wapiti" becoming a common name for the various cervus canadensis world wide, including the "American elk").
The real problem is you can tell by antlers and body that the devs didn't know which one belongs to Europe and which one does not. The new tileset is obviously for the Viking expansion and you can't even argue it's for Leif Erikson discovering America, because it also makes the wrong sound. Moose don't bugle. They put the wrong animal in.
The most fun part is, that someone chose the wrong sound, because they did not know that the same term Elk and Moose can reference the same animal. Just wild.
What baffles me is that we are all fine with poodles, dachshunds, and leonbergers all being dogs, but here we are arguing about different flavours of deer.
Elk are smaller than moose, but bigger than a deer. They have very long spiky antlers. They make high pitched squeals.
Moose are huge, closer to the size of a horse, and their antlers are shaped more like hands. Big flat plates with protruding finger -like spikes. They bellow instead of squeal.
Lol yes. We had a moose cow and her calf in the back yard maybe 200ft away at the last place we lived and my wife said "I want to get closer to get a better picture!"
Only a Clysdale is a similar size to a Moose as far as I know. Moose are MASSIVE. As a Canadian I've only seen a young Moose irl, I do not want to have an encounter with an adult, that would be terrifying, lol.
Fair. I’ve never seen a Clysdale in an environment where I could’ve compared it to something else. They are pretty big.
I’ve never seen a Moose in person but I’ve seen dash cams from my friends up in Maine where they come up on them on the roads and being in a Ram 2500 staring at the side of an animal is insane
Its not about whether or not they are different animals. This is a linguistic difference lmao.
The rest of the world knows that what North Americans call elk and moose are two different animals.
You are correct about the sounds they make though.
You can call them whatever you grew up and learned to call them. Neither moose nor elk are wrong. Canada also calls them moose. The meme is just the usual "look how stupid US Americans look for thinking the rest of the world is wrong.
Europeans and US Americans will never not make fun of each other. Its not a big deal.
The right one is a "Wapiti". But since most people don't really know animals that well, they'd just call the right one a "Hirsch" (which just kind of means "stag")
Thanks for the picture, but I was already well aware of the anatomical differences between moose and elk. I grew up in the US and call them different names. I also just understand that language isn't universal and that common names of animals vary across the world, so I don't have a conniption fit if someone from any country in Europe refers to them both as elk.
Yes, common names vary a lot. The same species can have several different names, and the same name can be used for several different species. There are no rules.
Common names for animals are not decided by a committee with the objective to be consistent and avoid confusion, they are as messy as any other aspect of human language.
Cervus canadensis is most commonly called Elk or Wapiti.
Alces alces is commonly called Moose or Elk.
Usually, in countries where Elk is used for Alces alces, Wapiti is used for Cervus canadensis. In countries where Moose is use for Alces alces, Elk is used for Cervus canadensis.
You seem to not know how language works. It does not care if they are different or not, elk for English seem to encompass both animals. Before deer meant any animal, so you differentiating between elk and moose, means you influenced by Americans
Looked up the etymology, seems like British English speakers cared less about the distinction as they basically didnt ever see either very often. North American English speakers obviously picked up the terms from natives.
No it's not a linguistic difference. They depict a NA moose and gave it EU elk sounds. Moose in Europe, what you'd call Elk, don't make that sound either.
Both yes, and no. We have a different animal in North America that we call Ella. In Europe they call moose elk, and I don’t think they have North American Elk.
Closer I suppose. The smallest male moose is about the weight of the largest quarter horses. Thats also not to say there aren’t horses as heavy and nearly as big as moose either, they are just… well like I said massive horses. I once worked with a Belgian draft horse who was 17 1/2 hands tall and weighed nearly 2,000 pounds. She was an absolute freak of a specimen though.
Yes, they are totally different animals. Alces Alces, called in US English moose after the algonquin word for the same animal and Cervus Canadensis, called wapiti. The original British English word for Alces Alces is elk, like in all other Germanic languages. When British settlers reached North America, Alces Alces had been extinct in Britain for centuries, and when they saw big deer they called them elk. Then they started using the borrowed moose for Alces Alces.
So, elk is the "correct" British English name for what is in the US and Canada just as "correctly" called a moose. In Britain, the term moose is becoming more common because the only English-speaking countries that have them call them moose. There would have been nothing wrong with AoE2 going with moose, and there certainly is nothing wrong with using elk either.
Had to scroll so far to see someone point out the linguistic difference doesn't even matter and that they depict one animal with another's sfx. Go outside guys.
So if they are two distinct species, and only North Americans differentiate two names for them, wouldnt the rest of the world in fact be "wrong"? Or at least less accurate?
I think it's the antlers specifically are why folks think its a moose. Those look like large flat blades vs traditional elk horns. Hard to tell size in AOE because they are the size of elephants.
It is hilarious to me that so many Americans in the comments fail to read the problem correctly. "are u dumb, those are two different animals". Yeah no shit Sherlock, we get that what you call Elk and Moose are two different animals. The point is that MANY other languages have a different word for what you'd call a moose, which would sound more like Elk.
That said, the discussion is silly anyway: of course languages differ, and sometimes things that sound very similar in both languages mean two completely different things. These are called "false friends". Like how "raisin" in English refers to the dried grape, whereas in French it is just "a grape". Similar but yet very different.
They are all equally correct. There are no rules for common names for species. The same name can be used for several different species, and the same species can be called several different names.
They're all equally correct but the devs are all equally wrong because they depict a moose, most easily determined by antlers, and gave it elk sounds. It doesn't matter where the moose/elk is, nothing with those antlers makes those sounds.
To say they are all equally correct is a pretty extreme thing to say. There is such a thing as logic and some regional conventions are more logical. If two kinds of animals are commonly known to be different they should have different common names. If you want to say, elk are a group of large deer like animals with antlers. One type of elk is x, and another type is y, that is logical. But that doesn’t seem to be what’s going on with the European conventions. They’re just calling them both the same thing even though they damn well know they aren’t
Yes it's called Moose in English (even in the UK). Neither moose or elk exist in England (and likely never have). Both exist in the US. So it's probably fair to use their word for it.
The Eurasian Elk was found in the British Isles up until about 3,000 years ago. There is fossil evidence all the way from the Caledonian Forest region in Scotland to the Fens in East Anglia, so not exactly uncommon either. They went extinct in the UK by around the bronze age.
Given that the Oxford English Dictionary also says that Elk is British English and Moose is American English, I'd trust that for a verified source.
Common names don't really matter, actually... In my language they're called "Alce" and "Cervo canadense." Should we stop calling them that just because they don't exist here? No. Because they're common names - used by people to point out or talk about an animal. The scientific name is their actual "definition" (lacking a better word).
American English is different from British English, just like Brazilian Portuguese differs from European Portuguese... Different doesn't mean wrong. Yeah, it can be confusing at first, but once you figure out the differences, all should be settled.
It’s more complicated than that. British English uses Elk for Moose I think. I can’t remember but I watched a video about how the words switched and changed in history. Depends on your region what exactly you’re referring to.
They might use elk for moose, but that has nothing to do with saying Americans use moose for elk. If it depends on the region then use the regional flag
I would like to add to the discussion, that even Mr Age of Enlightenment himself, Thomas Jefferson in his 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia calls Cervus Canadensis “Red deer” and points out that uneducated people in the states mistakenly call it “elk”.
So I suspect in an argument over naming that went all the way to the supreme court, they would have to agree that a moose is an elk and a wapiti is just a red deer. (Since they recently ruled a number of cases on the basis that whatever the founding fathers thought about it was the correct interpretation)
Yeah, the whole discurs around this is so stupid. It's essentially just the difference between british and emerican english, with the US folks failing to realize this.
Idk, the elk crowd are getting pretty aggressive about the whole thing. Apparently T90 received a long, very strongly worded email about calling it a Moose
The linguistic debate doesn't really matter at all, but they depict a moose and gave it elk only sounds. It adds to the confusion. Nothing with those antlers makes those sounds.
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u/hoTsauceLily66 1d ago
Aoe2 player: Boar