Do the books ever say oliphaunts aren’t elephants?

Question

In a comment here, Valorum states "Zero elephants. Several Oliphaunts". Which made me wonder: is there anything in Tolkien's writings to support the notion that Oliphaunts are not elephants?

The description we have is as follows:

Grey as a mouse,
Big as a house,
Nose like a snake,
I make the earth shake,
As I tramp through the grass;
Trees crack as I pass.
With horns in my mouth
I walk in the South,
Flapping big ears.
Beyond count of years
I stump round and round,
Never lie on the ground,
Not even to die.
Oliphaunt am I,
Biggest of all,
Huge, old, and tall.
If ever you’d met me
You wouldn’t forget me.
If you never do,
You won’t think I’m true;
But old Oliphaunt am I,
And I never lie.
_{Lord of the Rings, Book IV, chapter 3 - The Black Gate is Closed}

To me, that says "elephant".

There is also a description of the opliphaunts carrying "towers" on their back. That is reminiscent of depictions of Hannibal's war elephants, for example:

_{(War elephants depicted in Hannibal Barca crossing the Rhône (1878), by Henri Motte. Source: Wikipedia. Image in the public domain)}

Is there anything to contradict the supposition that "Oliphaunts" is what the hobbits call elephants, plain and simple?

(Note I am emphatically not asking about the movie. Peter Jackson decided to make a bunch of changes because that fitted his artistic vision, that's his prerogative.)

Answer 1

The term "oliphaunt" is not native to Tolkien. It is, in fact, the Middle English version (variations are Old French olifant and olyphaunt) used to describe the animal as well as ivory, and is a direct etymological ancestor of today's "elephant." Tolkien was, ahem, something of an English language nerd, so using archaic terms appealed to him quite a bit.

In other words, whether or not Tolkien enhanced or altered the Middle-earth's Oliphaunt somehow, he most certainly had actual elephants in mind.

Answer 2

Tolkien explicitly states (in Chapter 4 - OF HERBS AND STEWED RABBIT) they're much bigger than our latter-day elephants.

Sam saw a vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope. Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit’s eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty.

Answer 3

Elephants have historically come in a wide range of types and sizes, from the pygmy European elephants of Sardinia and Cyprus, all the way up to the gargantuan Asian straight tusked. There are other elephant-like animals that, had they not gone extinct, would probably also be called "elephants" (e.g. mammoths).

The Asian straight tusked, perhaps around 15 foot tall at the shoulder, would make for a suitable primary world model for the mumak. And for all that, it's still an oliphaunt.

Not big enough for Peter Jackson, but certainly more than large enough for any Hobbit, who probably would just about come up to the creature's ankle! As has been quoted, Tolkien says "his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty." However, he is not saying that mumakil are not elephants. He is clearly relating elephants to mumakil and noting that later beasts are smaller in size.

He undoubtedly chose the spelling "oliphaunt" very carefully, as he chose every other deliberate archaism he used. I'd argue that his meaning was clear: mumakil are indeed elephants, but a larger kindred than those that live today. On this point, Christopher Tolkien relates that his father made a note re the Mannish languages other than Adûnaic:

"Of the speech of Men of the East and allies of Sauron all that appears is múmak, a name of the great elephant of the Harad."

(The Peoples of Middle-Earth, p79)

Answer 4

I would answer no, a Mûmak is not an elephant. Instead, a Mûmak should be considered a member of the order Probosicdea, an order that includes elephants and many species of extinct animals similar to elpephants.

The order of Proboscidea has many families and groups.

Note that modern elephants belong to the genus Elephas and genus Loxodonta, and they are very closely related, both part of the Elephantinae, while many other types of Proboscideans, including some that became extinct within the last 13,000 years, were more distantly related.

It is certain that no known species of living or extinct proboscideans has "elephant" as part of its scientific name. The word "elephant" in common usage certainly refers to members of the three modern species with the scientific names of Elephas maximus, Loxondonta africana, and Lodondonta cyclotis. It is not certain whether it refers to members of dozens of extinct species of proboscideans. Since the Mûmak is larger than any present species of proboscideans, it is uncertain whether Mûmakil are included among elephants in common usage.

Describing Mûmakil as proboscideans would definitely be accurate, since they are obviously members of the order Proboscidea, but are not so obviously included in the usual meaning of the word "elephant".

Answer 5

To directly answer the titular question, in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien does not say that Oliphaunts aren't Elephants.

Speculatively, any distinction we might draw between the two would have to be a fine one.

No, in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien does not say that.