paljakka

[vincebel]

hi all.

im translating in english some environmental articles but i dont know how to translate paljakka.

for example: perhonen lentelee vain tunturipaljakoilla

any clues?

thanks.

edit: ok i found that: Paljakka tai tunturipaljakka on metsärajan yläpuolelle nouseva tunturin lakialue.

is there a word in english for that?

[AldenG]

The only word that comes to mind for me is bald -- which you may not be used to thinking of as a noun, but it is in fact used as the name of a geographical feature in certain parts of the world.

For instance: Appalachian balds

As I understand it, a bald isn't necessarily above the climatological timberline but it more or less looks like it is.

[Rob A.]

The only word that comes to mind for me is bald -- which you may not be used to thinking of as a noun, but it is in fact used as the name of a geographical feature in certain parts of the world.

For instance: Appalachian balds

As I understand it, a bald isn't necessarily above the climatological timberline but it more or less looks like it is.

That sounds pretty good....some of these words have such a precise local usage that they can be hard to translate exactly....maybe a native speaker could describe the type of mental image they have when they use the word tunturipaljakka....

I would translate the sentence literally as:

"The butterfly flutters around only on fells."....but I don't think that is quite good enough....you might have to say:

"The butterfly is found only on low treeless hills of the type found in northern Finland and other similar parts of far northern Europe."....

Here's how wiktionary handles the word: tunturi

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tunturi

[Aside: ....and I've just returned from a rather delightful trip to Suomi....besides Helsinki, mostly in eastern Finland, as far north as Nurmes....not too many tunturit......but lots of kauniita mäntymetsiä, harjuja ja järviä...and, as it turned out, a very useful, and rather relentless...kielikylpy...]

[Rosamunda]

The bare mountains of Lapland are usually referred to as fells but you could also use "outcrops" if they are very rocky. My dictionary translates outcrop as "paljastuma". Maybe you could use both terms eg the bare, rocky outcrops of the fells... Presumably it doesn't have to be a word for word translation.

[onkko]

[Aside: ....and I've just returned from a rather delightful trip to Suomi....besides Helsinki, mostly in eastern Finland, as far north as Nurmes....not too many tunturit......but lots of kauniita mäntymetsiä, harjuja ja järviä...and, as it turned out, a very useful, and rather relentless...kielikylpy...]

Kö perkele, suomessa olit ja et mitää meille puhunu! Nyt tuli tupenrapinat

[Rob A.]

[Aside: ....and I've just returned from a rather delightful trip to Suomi....besides Helsinki, mostly in eastern Finland, as far north as Nurmes....not too many tunturit......but lots of kauniita mäntymetsiä, harjuja ja järviä...and, as it turned out, a very useful, and rather relentless...kielikylpy...]

Kö perkele, suomessa olit ja et mitää meille puhunu! Nyt tuli tupenrapinat

Well, your comment is too idiomatic for me to fully interpret with my modest level of proficiency in the language...however, I will, of course, interpret this as your sincere and heartfelt wishes that my improvement continues..., albeit at a rather painfully slow rate...

It seems I'm now at the level where I generally know what people are talking about, though not the details and not the subtleties...provided the language they are using is not too idiomatic and not too fast paced....but I easily get lost and my responses are generally fairly wooden and not much beyond being monosyllabic..... a kind of "Tarzan-speak" I would guess ....

[Edit: Onkko...I've had a native speaker "translate" your comment for me, and...indeed, it was too idiomatic for me, I thought it was something to do with my speaking skills. But, yes, I spent about three delightful weeks in your beautiful country....mind you, I guess I was there at the best time of year...no bleak, dark, snowy, frozen landscapes.... My experiences included mökki
/sauna/swim in a cold lake/grilli....plus hyttyset...though maybe I was luckly there, I've lived through worse attacks of hyttyset in northern Canada...and there were lots of other interesting things that happened...]

[AldenG]

I asked Mrs G about this and she doesn't necessarily think of paljakka as a bald or a hilltop but just a bare area. And in her opinion, it doesn't need to be naturally bare, either -- it could be simply a clearing. I'm taking that with a grain of salt, but I do associate butterflies with "alpine meadows." So I wonder if paljakka could safely be translated as alpine or other sort of meadow.

It's hard with technical subjects because there's more often a right and wrong choice.

[Upphew]

"The butterfly flutters around only on fells."....but I don't think that is quite good enough....you might have to say:

"The butterfly is found only on low treeless hills of the type found in northern Finland and other similar parts of far northern Europe."....

I'd go probably to something like Rob said. "The butterfly flies only on treeless areas of fells"?

[Rosamunda]

If you google "kuva paljakka" you hit a few (copyright) photos... They look like what we would call fells or moorland in the UK. Acid soil, very low vegetation mostly heathers, lichens etc, predominately dark green/brown (and I guess "ruska" in the autumn), definitely above the treeline and quite rocky. Not pretty, pretty and lush like alpine meadows.

(Note: Paljakka is also the name of a ski resort, so skip the snowy pics)

[mrjimsfc]

In America there are many mountains named "Baldy", meaning bald topped mountain/hill. Of course when you get over 3,350 meters above sea level there are no more trees. In Finland though, the highest point (Haltitunturi) is about the same elevation as where I presently live (on the shores of the Great Salt Lake), at the lowest point in the Great Basin, in the central western portion of the U.S., over 1,300 meters below the treeline. Therefore, it can't be elevation that is causing the tops of the tunturi to be bald the way they are. It must be the fault of the butterflies.

[AldenG]

Shouldn't the timberline be significantly lower in elevation at high latitudes like those in Finland, though?

Already in Nova Scotia, you see the evergreens being much smaller and sparser than in New York state. I don't know if that's a latitude effect or soil effect or something to do with temperatures and the Labrador current, etc. But it's my recollection that even big evergreens in Finland are only middling compared to the average ones in Oregon or Washington State.

Back to the subject of the original text, I'd personally be more strict about paljakka if the article were about such features as meadows, heaths, balds, etc. But since it's about butterflies I might take more latitude. Partly that would depend on whether it's a specific butterfly that might, for instance, only be found on heaths and not in traditional meadows. One also has to ask oneself how carefully the original writer considered the choice of word and how well he understands the distinctions. Sometimes with too much attention to detail, one ends up translating random noise.

Heath or heathland seems to be another possibility we've overlooked so far, though penelope certainly alludes to it. I might not have thought of it without the mention of heather.

[vincebel]

wow thanks a lot guys

i will use the one with the treeless areas i think. People still need to understand english as well

[Rob A.]

Shouldn't the timberline be significantly lower in elevation at high latitudes like those in Finland, though?

Already in Nova Scotia, you see the evergreens being much smaller and sparser than in New York state. I don't know if that's a latitude effect or soil effect or something to do with temperatures and the Labrador current, etc. But it's my recollection that even big evergreens in Finland are only middling compared to the average ones in Oregon or Washington State.

Yes... Here it is illustrated....



As a general statement, as you go further and further north the "tree line" elevation gets lower and lower...but it's a very complex process affected by many variables....permafrost, exposure (the north side of a hill or mountain will reach its "tree line" before the south side), soil types and bedrock...etc, etc.....

The so-called "tree line" is anything but a distinct line when you are in the Arctic....it will look distinct from a satellite shot, but will appear more and more ragged as you approach ground level. In northern Canada the tree line is not reached in the western Arctic until you are around 68 d. N. and in northern Ontario it's at around 52 d. N...which is well south of the latitude of Helsinki....

[Aside: One of my summer jobs during university days included a summer in the western Canadian Arctic. On one of projects we had to hike from the tundra back into town which was just below the tree line... about 30 to 35 kilometres total distance..... It was really quite interesting....from treeless tundra, to areas of low willow bushes, to stunted trees...(some were probably very old and "natural" Bonzai trees), to the normal, though still rather short, fully formed spruce forest.... But there are all sorts of anomalies in the Arctic....on a separate trip, probably no more than another 30 or 40 kms south, we were in a spruce forest with trees that would have seemed normal thousands of kilometres to the south...probably a little microclimate area with unusually deep permafrost-free soil.... I also remember that my concerns had shifted...from mosquitoes on the tundra to wolves in the large spruce forest, though while I saw lots of mosquitoes, my fear of wolves was apparently misplaced...I didn't see a single one the whole time I was up in the Arctic...]

[AldenG]

Great addition, Rob. Sometimes I forget to mention but you often have really interesting perspective to add.

[Rob A.]

...and here's a link with a number of rather surprising...to me anyway....winter scenes from a low latitude location...seems like it should be somewhere in the French Alps...but it isn't...

...Ifrane, Morocco....this place was a "hill station"...(escape from the heat)...during the French colonial period....judging from the cars some of the photos are quite old.....

http://dafina.net/forums/read.php?52,79384,255793