deer in German: Hirsch, Reh

Question

I have translated "deer" into German. I have found two translations there:

• der Hirsch
• das Reh

I am studying the difference between them.

Hypothesis: Hirsch is a male deer, Reh is a female deer.

Answer 1

That's a common misconception: A "Reh" is not a female "Hirsch".

"Hirsch" without further specification means the zoological family Cervidae (deer - or venison, when it's on your plate), which includes several dozen species. Among those are the "Elch" (moose), the "Ren" or "Rentier" (reindeer), the "Damhirsch" (fallow deer), the "Rothirsch" (red deer) and also the "Reh" (roe deer or roe).

Any of these have males and females, which in some cases have their own specific names. As for the "Reh", a male is called "Rehbock" (roe buck), a female is a "Ricke" (doe) [in some regions a "Geiß", though this mostly means a female goat], a youngling is a "Rehkitz" (fawn).

Answer 2

In the taxonomic system of biology there is a family named:

Hirsche (German name)
Deer (English name)
Cervidae (scientific name)

(Links go to Wikipedia-articles)

Animals belonging to this family live in Europe, Asia and America and in the northwest of Africa. This family contains more than 50 different species.

This family has two subfamilies, one of which is:

Trughirsche (Neuwelthirsche)
New world deer
Capreolinae

This subfamily is divided into some genera, and one of those genera (Capreolus) has two species. One of those species is:

Roe deer (western roe deer)
Reh (Europäisches Reh)
Capreolus capreolus

This species is what we call a »Reh« in German. Animals belonging to this species live in Europe (and also in Turkey, more than 90% of which is in Asia). They can not be found in the wild in other parts of Asia, or other continents.

But as shown above, every »Reh« is a »Hirsch«. This is because »Hirsch« is not the name of a species, but the name of a family containing more than 50 different species, and only one of them is called »Reh« in German.

So there are many kinds of »Hirsche«. But when you talk about »Hirsch« in German, without any further information, then in most cases you mean:

Rothirsch
Red deer
Cervus elaphus

This species lives in Europe, western and central Asia and in the North of Africa.

So neither »Reh« nor »(Rot-)Hirsch« can be found in America, and this leads to a very interesting story, that I want to tell (this part of my posting is no longer part of your question, but still quite interesting):

---

The Austrian author Felix Salten is not only thought to have written the most famous child porn novel in history of writing (Josefine Mutzenbacher). He also wrote one of the most famous children's books:

Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde
Bambi, a Life in the Woods

This is a story of a little child-Reh (not a (Rot-)Hirsch!), growing up with his parents. Of course, both of them, i.e daddy and mommy, are Rehe (plural of »Reh«). Little Bambi learns quickly that men are hunting and killing Rehe, and some day his beloved mommy gets shot by men.

Bambi himself also get shot some years later, but he survives. The book ends with Bambi being an adult roebuck who now himself has two kids.

This story was published in Austria in 1923, and 1942 the American Walt Disney company made an animated cartoon movie out of this book, named

Bambi

The story of the movie is very close to the story of the book, but there is no Reh in America, so the american artists drew Bambi and his mother as a

Weißwedelhirsch
White-tailed deer

which is a deer-species living in America, but not in Europe. But it looks quite similar to a Reh.

Bambi’s father (“The Great King of the Forest”) was painted as a different deer-species that had a more masculine body than the feminine white-tailed deer (sorry, I don’t know which species Bambi’s father is in the movie).

The point is, that Bambi’s father looks very similar to an European red-deer. This was no problem in America, since Bambi, his mother and his father all were deer (well, still different species, but hey, it’s an American Disney movie).

But this did not work in the German version of this movie. When this movie was synchronized into German language, they turned Bambi and his mother back to Rehe, like in the original book by Felix Salten.

But when they talked about his father, then they said it was a Hirsch.

This movie was very often seen also in German spoken countries, and much more children and adult people did see Rehe and Hirsche in this movie than in real live. And so generations of people in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, who has seen this movie, grew up believing, that a »Hirsch« is the male form, and a »Reh« is the female form of the same species. And I bet still now, in 2016, lots of people believe this. But as explained above, this is wrong.

Answer 3

They are two different animals: Hirsch is the English "deer" (also called "hart"); Reh is the English "roe".