Correct German Translation of "Ridge" (geographical) in this context?

September 6, 2020 4:31 AM

I need clarification of this translation of geographical ridge into German, please.

I understand "Kamm" may be what I am looking for, but if I am talking about the edge of a hill that sharply descends into a bog or holler in Appalachia but is not dramatically high or mountainous is this still correct? The descent is perhaps less than 50 feet, but in a very short distance. Should I use "Grat" instead? Is there something better? Gipfel, maybe?

In English I would say "The cabin was built on the ridge of the holler (or to a Northerner I'd use the word swamp or bottoms)"

Thanks! My German is functional but not expansive and this has me tripped up.

posted by Tchad to Writing & Language (8 answers total)

I am German but not a translator. Translating some language constructs succinctly such as yours, is especially hard.

So this is what my “feel” for the language tells me:
Grat and Kamm are steep on both sides.
Klippe is probably what you mean, but generally larger.
You could call it a kleine Klippe or maybe go for Kante.

Die Hütte wurde an der Bergkante zum Sumpf erbaut.
Die Hütte wurde auf einer kleinen Klippe über dem Sumpf erbaut.

Or do the wordy German thing :-)
Die Hütte wurde auf einer zum Sumpf hin steil abfallenden Anhöhe errichtet.

So holler is swamp? I thought it was a very small valley. You always learn new things...

For fairly good machine translations for the non-German speakers here I recommend https://deepl.com
posted by mmkhd at 4:54 AM on September 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Ok, looked up holler: Bodensenke, Niederung, so I would rather translate it as Tal(valley) than Sumpf. Bodensenke or Niederung themselves are probably too technical sounding. (At least in the Kontext of my example translations.)
posted by mmkhd at 5:04 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

Another German, 2nding the suggestion to go wordy and I like mmkhd‘s suggestion a lot. To me it sounds exactly like what I‘d expect to read in a non technical, non news story description.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:11 AM on September 6, 2020

Ha! Another German speaker here, and I was going to say what koahiatamadl wrote.

The wordy suggestion sounds like what I'd expect to read in a novel, though I suppose a geologist might have more technically correct descriptions .
posted by Omnomnom at 7:47 AM on September 6, 2020

Response by poster: Thank you so much, everybody! Let me think through how I want to approach this. For context I didn't add when I posted this initially:

I am trying to name a small piece of property in an area of Southern Indiana/Northern Kentucky where a lot of the things and places have German names (streets, farms, buildings, people, etc...).

Right now it is a small cabin on the ridge of a holler, but in the near future it will be much more than that. We are picturing a small functioning agricultural setup with maybe some educational things.

In trying to decide on a name for the place, my niece suggested that we name the property "White Rose Ridge" after the Geschwister Scholl - who are legitimate heroes to us. I think this is an amazing idea and could lead to some VERY teachable moments for people and still have a connection to the local culture as so many people there feel it. To have a bilingual sign in English and German Fraktur would just be perfect.

Also: There are indeed white roses everywhere along the ridge.
posted by Tchad at 11:37 AM on September 6, 2020

Best answer: "White Rose Ridge"

Now it gets really hard (at least for me). Placenames in Germany are often one word and you can easily create new words by bunching things together but not everything feels natural.

In the context of naming places in modern German, I would translate "ridge" as "-höhe", to describe it as the flat top part of a steep hill or mountain.
This way it would become "Rosenhöhe" which would be idomatic German for a place name. You could also go for "Weißrosenhöhe" but this doesn't feel as authentic.
You also lose the connection to the resistance group because a descriptive use of "Weiße Rose" changes the words according to the underlying grammatical constructs and you want to keep it a name if you seek a strong connection to the history of the Scholls.
For example "Haus der weißen Rosen" would be a poetic name but nobody would think of the Scholls. It would have to be "Haus 'Weiße Rose'" or "Haus zur Weißen Rose".
Why did I not use "-höhe"? Because it would have to be "Anhöhe" as a word of its own and "Anhöhe 'Weiße Rose'" is not a good name. Nobody would use "Anhöhe" like this, wheras naming houses in this way ist quite common.

Here is a list of placenames according to their geologic shape. "Weißrosenrück" has a good ring to it and would be a direckt translation of "white rose ridge". I didn't offer this translation before, because -rück is not used as a single word and is more of an historical construct for place names.

If the Sholls had been from the Rhineland, you could call it "Rosenley" as in the (semi-?)famous "Loreley" but they were from Munich.

To end my rambling go for "Haus 'Weiße Rose'" if you want to have a direct connection to the German Resistance and "Weißrosenrück" for a direkt tranlation of White Rose Ridge.

And does it have to be Fraktur? I know that the Nazi opposed Fraktur and supported modern lettering, nevertheless I always associate Fraktur with them. But maybeFraktur will help you to get into conversations with people that might benefit from history lessons about the Weiße Rose :-) ? (And if you like the look of Fraktur, it's not my place to judge. The lettershapes are innocent and you use them in a good way.)
posted by mmkhd at 4:47 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I missed the "small agricultural setup". "Rosenhof" (Rose Farm) would be perfect. Lots of places already have this name in Germany. Again "Weißrosenhof " wouldn't be as ideomatic.
posted by mmkhd at 4:53 AM on September 7, 2020

Just wanted to state at least in my area of northern appalachia (Catskills) we called them hollows rather than swamp or bottom.
posted by Ferreous at 9:34 AM on September 7, 2020