Маракуйя

by Don  

Back in the Soviet era there wasn't much tropical fruit in Russia. You couldn't find a banana to save your soul. Now bananas in Russian are as common as smog. Imagine my surprise, then, when a former student of mine wrote from Moscow that she had bought canned passion fruit and yogurt with passion fruit. Wow, everything has changed in Russia since communism fell. I hate it when that happens.

The Russian word for passion fruit is маракуйя, a word most likely borrowed from Spanish. (There are also some other phrases that describe it, namely, страстоцвет съедобный, пассифлора съедобная, and гранадилла пурпурная; маракуйя seems now to be the standard.) Words ending in -йя are uncommon in Russian, so one immediately is curious what the genitive plural is. It turns out to be маракуй.

Some sample sentences:

Я лично не верю, что в йогурт с маракуйей кладут маракуйю. Это всё продукты химической промышленности. Personally, I don't believe that they put passionfruit in passionfruit yogurt. It's all just products of the chemical industry.
Если вы устали от хмурого неба, просто скушайте маракуйю! (source) If you are tired of the gloomy weather, just eat a passionfruit!
Для этого суфле нужно двести пятьдесят милилитров нектара маракуйи. For this soufflé you need 250 mililiters of passionfruit nectar.
Сперва Зина мне не понравилась, а потом она меня ударила по голове маракуйей, и с тех пор я её ужасно люблю. At first I didn't like Zina, but then she hit me in the head with a passionfruit, and since that time I have loved her like crazy.

esmaracuyá
frfruit de la Passion
gePasjonsfrukt
ptmaracujá

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