Keskustelu:Niittokone

Interwiki conflict

Hello, there seems to be an interwiki conflict here. General overview articles about mowing machines (different types, for cutting grass, fodder harvest) and articles about reapers (early machines for grain harvest) are linked to each other apparently. I tried to find the English translation of Niittokone, but wasn't successful yet. The external link to "Finfood Oppimateriaali" wasn't helpful at all (that page looks pretty unrelated to the topic, btw – spam?). And the images currently used here show different machines (a mower-conditioner, two finger-bar mowers, a swather/windrower, and a reaper). So what exactly is this article about? --Bdk 30. tammikuuta 2012 kello 14.54 (EET)

Hi Bdk. The article is about the machine only. The English one also tells about the people do do the job manually. The literal translation for niittokone is "scything machine". The article claims it has been used also for harvesting - never heard such, it is only used for hay as far as I am aware.

I hope this description was helpful. --Gwafton 30. tammikuuta 2012 kello 15.22 (EET)

This is really complicated because same words such as "niittokone" may have meant quite different things in different times and to find right interwikies you should know both the history of the machinery and different terms for each machine in each time period in several languages. But in any case if en:reaper means a machine like this: [1], this kind of very special machine (that is no longer used in moderm agriculture) is in finnish elokone (maybe also "Elonkorjuukone") and its counterpart from the same period, that looks like this: [2] (there are also tractor versions of it that look quite similar) is called niittokone in finnish. But what comes to more modern machinery that is used to cut off the hay from the ground, the terminology is more complicated, because in some occasions the term "niittokone" may still be used, but because the modern machinery often does many kind of other processing to the hay or grass, also many other more spesific names can be used and therefore maybe the term "niittokone" is not usewd so much nowadays, because it often tends to be too unspesific name, and other, more spesific names may be used instead. --Urjanhai 30. tammikuuta 2012 kello 15.28 (EET)

But if we see from wikimedia commons, the category: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mowers?uselang=fi seems to best fit for the meaning of fi:Niittokone, so I guess the maybe most approriate english translation for the word "niittokone" would be "mower" or "mowing machine" (with all of its subtypes, while, perhaps, all of its subtypes may not necessarily be called "niittokone" in finnish). And "reaper (early machines for grain harvest)" clearly is "elokone" (or "elonkorjuukone") in finnish. --Urjanhai 30. tammikuuta 2012 kello 15.42 (EET)

Many thanks for the quick replies!

@ Gwafton: Yes, the current English article about reapers is a bit unusual; it might be split up into two articles in the future (one about the machine, one about the people). Anyway, your hint, that "niittokone" machines were/are only used for cutting hay, not for grain harvest, is essential and made it more clear.

@ Urjanhai: It's great, that you named the Finnish terms for reapers. I already added them to the translation table at Commons :-) Your further explanations are also very helpful. I would suggest now to change the interwiki links to en:Mower, sv:Slåttermaskin etc., ok? --:bdk: 30. tammikuuta 2012 kello 16.30 (EET)

As you probably are a native or near native english speaker, I suggest you to change the interwikies to be sure that they are correct. I also now made article elonleikkuukone (the name that seemed to be supported by the sources) so now there is also an interwiki available for en:Reaper.--Urjanhai 30. tammikuuta 2012 kello 16.37 (EET)