Can anyone tell me more about what the red , green, brown ya pears are aside from basics found in articles like this one i posted sometime ago 25 Types of Asian Pears: A to Z | Photos - Butter N Thyme. I’m trying to better understand different languages as related to pears. Li means pear but what does ya mean? Ya li, pai li etc. Is saying ya pears , pai pears. Ya must have more meaning. I think it means like wow How to use the Chinese Character 呀 (ya) | Written Chinese
We had a discussion about Ya Li a few months ago. Ya Li translates as “duck pear”. It actually refers to the shape of the pear which is somewhat similar to a waddling duck.
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That was my understanding as well, but these pears are round and called ya. That is when i realized i was confused about the name. I think ya does not mean duck. There is a possibility that the language is complexed enough (5000 characters) our language (26 characters) that it does not translate as easily as it appears to.
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呀 (ya), which we are going to cover here, can be an interjection, like 啊 (a), 喂 (wei), 诶 (ei). Such interjections can express emotions such as exclamation.
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We are familiar with ya li since we have grown it many years now Pyrus × bretschneideri - Wikipedia
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Pyrus × bretschneideri (or Pyrus bretschneideri ), the ya pear or pearple or Chinese white pear [1] (Chinese: 白梨; pinyin: báilí ), is an interspecific hybrid species of pear native to North China, where it is widely grown for its edible fruit.
Recent molecular genetic evidence confirms some relationship to the Siberian pear (Pyrus ussuriensis), but it can also be classified as a subspecies of the Chinese pear Pyrus pyrifolia.
Along with cultivars of P. pyrifolia and P. ussuriensis, the fruit is also called the nashi pear.[2] These very juicy, white to light yellow pears, unlike the round Nashi pears (P. pyrifolia) that are also grown in eastern Asia, are shaped more like the European pear (Pyrus communis), narrow towards the stem end. The “Ya Li” (Chinese: 鸭梨; pinyin: yālí), literally “duck pear” due to its mallard-like shape, is one cultivar widely grown in China and exported around the world. Ya pears taste similar to a mild Bosc pear, but are crisp, with a higher water content and lower sugar content."
Maybe it does not translate well and a brown ya. Pear simply means its a brown nashi pear.
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Asian Pear
Alternate Names: nashi pear, Japanese pear, Korean pear, Taiwan Pear, sand pear, apple pear
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@tonyOmahaz5 can you help clear this up ? Tony originally suggessted the ya li pear to me years ago now Ya Li aka yali pear . Is there a brown and red ya pear as the author suggests and if so do they simply mean they are nashi peaarsand not duck pears?
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I am not sure about the Red Yali. I only have the yellowish one for years now.
Tony
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Ya Li directly translates to duck pear due to its shape. Originally Yali is very light yellow, almost white with light fragrance, very juicy, long storage. Other colors may due to the hybridization of Yali
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