Tringinae 4

The distribution of the Tringinae in East Asia can be seen at Tzung-Su Ding's Distribution of Charadriies in East Asia.

1. For some reason -- possibly because a number of these birds are shot as game -- English is amazingly rich in words for the Scolopacidae, especially the Tringinae. It's not surprising that CJV are less well endowed. Most of the Tringinae are covered by just one general name in each language.

2. Chinese naming:

The Taiwanese names of the Tringinae are very close to the Japanese. This presumedly dates back to the period of Japanese control, when Japanese ornithologists made important contributions to the study of Taiwanese birds.

The Mainland names preserve some of the Japanese-inspired names but have been subjected to regularisation, as shown below:

In Taiwan, only three birds are called 濱鷸 bīn-yù ('shore yu'). On the Mainland, all members of Calidris have been named 滨鹬 bīn-yù (although some exceptions exist, depending on the authority).

The regularised Mainland names show some contradictions with the Taiwanese names. For instance, 大杓鹬 dà sháo-yù 'large spoon yu' refers to Numenius arquata on the Mainland and N. madagascariencis in Taiwan. The term 漂鹬 piāo-yù 'floating yu' refers to Tringa incana (Heteroscelus incanus) on the Mainland and Calidris minutus on Taiwan.

3. Japanese naming: The Japanese names were clearly created much earlier than the Chinese or Vietnamese names. This can be seen from the use of the 19th century word メリケン Meriken for 'America' in the name of the Heteroscelus incanus.

4. Vietnamese naming: The Vietnamese names, as usual, follow their own logic. Vietnamese ornithologists have given the members of the genus Tringa a special name, Choắt, which is different from the popular term for Sandpiper.

1. The Chinese have a proverb: 鹬蚌相争，渔人得利 yù bàng xiāng zhēng, yúrén dé lì. 'The yu and the clam struggle together; the fisherman makes the gain'. This derives from an old story of a snipe/sandpiper who had put his bill inside the clam's shell in order to eat the clam. The clam countered by clamping his shell tightly onto the bird's bill. The two were locked in a battle that neither could win. Along came the fisherman and claimed the both of them. The moral of the story is obvious.

The Japanese have taken this proverb from the Chinese, but use it in the highly truncated form 漁父の利 gyofu no ri 'the fisherman's benefit', which means nothing unless you know the story.

Vietnamese has also borrowed this proverb, but substitutes the cò (heron or similar bird) for the dẽ: Cò trai giữ nhau, ngư ông được lợi ('The heron and the mollusc hang on to each other, the fisherman gains the benefit'). (Vietnamese sometimes also substitutes a fight between a cockle and a clam, ngao sò.)

2. In Japanese haiku, the 鷸/鴫 shigi, referring to various kinds of snipe, woodcocks, and related birds, is a season word for autumn.