Corvinae

Monroe and Sibley have combined a number of families into a new, enlarged Corvidae. Aside from the Corvinae (crows, jays, etc.), the other members of the new Corvidae in East Asia are the Cinclosomatinae, the Pachycephalinae (whistlers, etc.), the Dicrurinae (drongoes, fantails, etc.), the Aegithininae (ioras), and the Malaconotinae (wood shrikes).

Chinese:

Corvini: This group includes several very familiar birds. The official Chinese common names for members of the Corvini all use either the character 鸦 yā ('crow') or the character 鹊 què ('magpie').

• Crows: In everyday usage 鸦 yā is applied only to the corvids (crows and ravens). In spoken Chinese, which tends to prefer two-syllable words, the name is lengthened to 乌鸦 wū-yā or 'black crow'. Colloquially, crows are supposedly known as 老鸹 lǎo-guā in the north of China and 老鸦 lǎo-yā in the south (although lǎo-yā, using different characters, is more generally applied to a style of duck meat.)
• Magpie: Pica pica is a very common bird known as 鹊 què in written Chinese, more often called the 喜鹊 xǐ-què in the spoken language (sometimes written 喜雀 xǐ-què or 'auspicious sparrow/finch'). The first character means 'happy' or 'auspicious'.
• Jay: The jay (Eurasian jay) is known as 松鸦 sōng-yā ('pine crow'). There is also a tradition of using the Japanese loanwords 橿鸟 jiāng-niǎo and 㭴鸟 jiān-niǎo, still found in many English-Chinese dictionaries.
• Other relatively familiar birds include the 树鹊 shù-què (tree pies), 星鸦 xīng-yā (Nutcracker), and the 灰喜鹊 huī xǐ-què (Azure-winged magpie).

Artamani: The wood swallow is not a particularly familiar bird to most Chinese, occurring in the far south. It is officially known as a 燕鶪 (燕 ) yàn-jú or 'swallow-shrike'.

Oriolini:

• Orioles: The Chinese name for the oriole is 黄鹂 huáng-lí, which means 'yellow oriole'. Non-yellow species drop the word 'yellow'. (Note: some naming systems retain the name 'yellow oriole' for all species reflecting the fact that huáng-lí is effectively a single word in spoken Chinese. In written Chinese, however, the character 鹂 lí 'oriole' is sufficient and the 黄 huáng 'yellow' is dropped.) The character for 鹂 lí consists of the phonetic 丽 lì (meaning 'beautiful') on the left and the character 鸟 niǎo (meaning 'bird') on the right. In Chinese, the oriole usually refers to the black-napped oriole (Oriolus chinensis), a bird famed for its song. A number of alternative names exist for this bird (see species list). The term 莺 yīng, which is now used for the warblers, is also traditionally applied to the oriole.
• Minivets: The minivets are known in Chinese as 山椒鸟 shān-jiāo-niǎo 'prickly ash birds'.
• Cuckoo shrikes: Mainland Chinese ornithologists have separated the members of Coracina from the minivets (Pericrocotus), calling the Coracina 鹃䴗 juān-jú, quite literally 'cuckoo shrikes'. This word follows the English naming, suggesting that it has been coined by scientists. Taiwan calls all minivets and cuckoo shrikes 山椒鸟 shān-jiāo-niǎo ('prickly ash birds').

Japanese:

Corvini:

• Crows: In Japanese, crows are known as カラス karasu, written with the Chinese character 烏 or 鴉.
• Magpie: Pica pica is known as カササギ kasasagi, written 鵲.
• Jay: The Eurasian jay is known as the カケス kake-su, meaning 'hanging nest'. It is written with the two characters 懸巣 ('hanging nest'). A separate character has also been coined, which is . There are several alternative names for the jay.
• Azure-winged Magpie: Cyanopica cyanus (cyana) is known as the オナガ o-naga ('long tail'), written with the characters 尾長 ('tail-long').
  

Artamini: In Japanese, the wood swallows are known literally as モリツバメ (森燕) mori-tsubame 'wood swallows', a direct translation from the English. The birds occur in the far south of Japan.

Oriolini:

• Orioles: The Japanese word for 'oriole' isコウライウグイス (高麗鴬) Kōrai uguisu, meaning 'Korean warbler', suggesting that the Japanese traditionally see the bird as an 'exotic' rather than a native. The word Kōrai is the name of one of the ancient kingdoms of Korea. Kōrai uguisu specifically refers to the Oriolus chinensis, for which several terms exist, some clearly borrowed from Chinese. Note that the ウグイス uguisu itself is Cettia diphone or 'Japanese bush warbler', a song bird unrelated to the oriole.
• Minivets: The minivets and cuckoo shrikes are known in Japanese as サンショウクイ sanshō-kui or 'prickly ash eaters' (山椒喰 or 山椒食い). The 山椒 sanshō is a kind of plant.

Vietnamese:

Corvini:

• Crows: The Vietnamese word for 'crow' is Quạ, or less commonly ác. The word ô, related to the Chinese word 乌 wū, is an older name for crows.
• Magpie: Pica pica is known as Ác là or Bồ các. The connection with the crows is evident in the first name.
• Jay: The Eurasian jay is known as Quạ thông ('pine crow'), a semantic borrowing from the Chinese. The word thông is in fact the Chinese word 松 sōng ('pine').
• Tree pies: The racket-tailed tree pie is known as Chim khách because of its call of 'khách khách'. The Dendrocitta tree pies are known as Choàng choạc, but this appears to be a specialist term not found in general dictionaries.
• The members of Urocissa and Cissa, i.e., the blue magpies, are known as Giẻ cùi.

Artamini: The Vietnamese name for the wood swallow is Nhạn rừng ('forest swallow'). Like the Japanese, the Vietnamese appears to have been translated directly from English.

Oriolini:

• Orioles: The Vietnamese word for oriole is Vàng anh. Other names are:

The words anh, oanh and hoàng were originally borrowed from Chinese. Oanh is equivalent to 莺 yīng ('warbler') and hoàng is equivalent to 黄 huáng ('yellow').

• Minivets and Cuckoo shrikes: Vietnamese has a large number of these birds, which are all known as Phường chèo. (In the list, I have uniformly translated Phường chèo as 'minivet'.)