North Americans say moose and Brittish say elk. In North America elk is also called wapiti. I say moose or should I say elk here in Europe? To me it is a littel confused about the name. What is right?

Matts

Yes, it does confuse. In Europe it is Älg,(moose) which sounds something like "elk" in North America for (wapiti). Wapiti is more correct for elk. Moose is more correct in North America because nobody in North America knows what the hell a älg is.
Kinda' like figuring out kilometers and miles, and Swedish miles.
Confused yet?........We could have asked WALTER.
But, I think WALTER wuld have given us an African interpretation.

In Quebec moose is l'orignal.

Just north of us, we have a small city called Red Deer, named after, what the early explorers called the abundant elk in the area. Have to grit my teeth, every time I go there. The city authorities have built a couple of fancy overpasses featuring castings of Whitetails.

A couple of Scottish hunters are in Alberta.
They are just walking in to their camp, when there is a Terrible Crashing noise rushing towards them in the thick bush.
The guide quickly pushes them behind a tree,
as a Huge Beast with Massive Antlers charges past, splintering small trees in it's path.

Quite shaken, the two Scotsmen emerge from behind the tree and ask
"What the heck was That?"

"That there was a Moose!" explains the guide.

One of the hunters replies "This Canada is a wonderful country, but if that was a Moose ... I'd hate to see a Rat !!!"

in Poland they classed this as an elk

The correct Scientific name is Alces alces.
This animal is referred to in Europe as the Elk and in the North American continent as the Moose.

Confusion might occur between US/Canadian and European hunters because in North America the Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) is sometimes called the Elk.

In norwegian a moose is called elg. In german it is elch.

I wonder when the first europeans (perhaps from scandinavia or some continental countries) saw a wapiti they meant it was a elg(moose) Americans often americanized european words so perhaps thats how elg become elk ?

Why don't you guys just call the Alces Alces "älg" instead, and get it over with?

Elg it is ! Europeans often got names mixed up. Elg [norwegian] => moose [algonguian indian meaning tree eater] [Alces Alces]. Wapiti [ Cervus Canadensis ] is from the western american indian language. What Americans often call elk is a misnomer and should be called wapiti which is related to the european red deer.
Have some aquavit and read it over a few times and it will become clear !

quote:

Originally posted by Trapper Dave:
The correct Scientific name is Alces alces.
This animal is referred to in Europe as the Elk and in the North American continent as the Moose.

Confusion might occur between US/Canadian and European hunters because in North America the Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) is sometimes called the Elk.

Dave
In which European language is the Alces alces refered to as Elk?

As Gelp says, in Norwegian and Swedish they are called Elg and in German Elch (from which the Norwegian /Swedish word has the root).

Some my pronounce it as elk, but in Norway/Sweden the last letter is pronounced as a G not a K.

It looks like that within the hunting fraternety, the American word Elk is gaining space, ref the American Elk hound Club.
A bit confusing as they also call the Wapiti, Elk as you mention.

I´m with Herr Berg and mete, call it Elg,(or that Swedish equivalent, I don´t have that specific letter on my keyboard, but they are pronounced the same way) that´s the correct word.

If moose is an indian word, what did the british/englishmen call a moose before they were introduced to the indian word?

I don't know if there have ever been moose/elg on the british isles , but some british must of course have seen one in Europe before elg got it's indian name moose.

quote:

Originally posted by Trapper Dave:
Confusion might occur between US/Canadian and European hunters because in North America the Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) is sometimes called the Elk.

An elk is called an elk in North America always......although I know the alternate Cree Indian name is wapiti, I've never heard it referred to as such by any hunter.

Alces americana when I went thru the univ of az in the 1960's.There are lumpers and spliters in the scientific community I'm a lumper.

quote:

Some my pronounce it as elk, but in Norway/Sweden the last letter is pronounced as a G not a K.

and in swedish that "g" is sorta silent, like our consonant "y". Ä is pronounced like e in bed or a in bad, kinda in between those two. so Älg is does not end with a hard consonant... take the words "Hell Yeah!" and chop off the H and the eah and all you got left is ellY and that is kinda close to what Älg sounds like to my ears

I subscribe to the theory that the english explorers in the 1600's knew what a deer was so they saw a deer and called it a deer, the knew northern europe had "elk" which was a bigger antlered thing, but had never seen one, so when then saw a much bigger "antlered thing" they called in an elk. Later on they saw some other big antlered thing and asked the indians and they either responded by telling them it was a moose (tree eater) or they used the loxahatchee word for "damned if I know, I'm not from around here" which is "Moose"... either way we ended up with the names mixed up and that lasted hundreds of years till someone sorted them out.

there's an organization, called the RMEF, its not called the RMWF. So that animal of ours is an ELK.

If I ever need to differentiate in converation, I might refer to them as "our elk" or elk/wapiti or "north american elk" and when referring to europe I might say "european elk which is related to our moose"... etc. its a little tougher if I'm speaking some other language.

by the way the piece of metal covering the engine on a truck is a HOOD, not a "bonnet" (which is the hat a lady SASS member wears)

2 countries divided by a common language.

Poole

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Arild Iversen:


Dave
In which European language is the Alces alces refered to as Elk?


QUOTE]

Why English of course! The common language of this forum.....a derived hybrid of Celtic, Latin, Norse, Saxon, Anglish, Jute, French and contributions from so many other languages too.

There's not a great deal of difference in pronunciation between Elk & Elg.

I love the language, not because its mine but because it is everyone's. No one owns it anymore, no one person invented it, anyone can add bits on and unused bits wither and drop off. That's democracy, people voting with their tongues!

Trapper Dave
I stand corrected

Just checking my Oxford Dictionary, there it is...ELK with a picture of an Elg.

It says in North America it is called a Moose.

There is also a picture of a Wapiti which is also called Elk even though they are two different species.
So far The Oxford...

About the English language...Though I never learned it at school, I have kind of used it all my working life both as a mariner, military man and oil field worker.

I strive to use it as best as I can and now I know that Elk is a English word, not an American slang...

So if the english explorers had seen a moose before they saw an elk then a moose would be called elk in american/english and perhaps an elk would be called wapiti

quote:

So if the english explorers had seen a moose before they saw an elk then a moose would be called elk in american/english and perhaps an elk would be called wapiti

EXACTLY!

it was entirely an accident of what they saw first!

Poole

maybe i got this the wrong way around
the other night i shot a pig several times
but in the morning it turned out to be a moose

no mention of elk there



sorry i'll get me coat