General
Information is based on dictionaries and other sources. Pinyin readings reflect standard Mandarin usage; for some dialect alternative names it may be of little practical use, especially for South China. Many Korean glosses are highly tentative. Comments and corrections welcome.
The name for the storm-petrels is 海燕 meaning 'sea swallow', written with the same characters as in Japanese. There is a good possibility that the choice of this particular name was influenced by Japanese:
- The Japanese name of the petrels features regional and dialectal variations on the word for 'swallow', namely ウミツバクラ umi-tsubakura and ウミツバクロ umi-tsubakuro, both meaning 'sea swallow'. This suggests that the term is native to Japanese.
- Chinese appears at one stage to have used 海燕 for birds other than the petrels, including the terns and possibly the swiftlets.
The species found in China belong to Oceanodroma, which are known as 叉尾海燕 'fork-tailed sea swallows' in Chinese.
Mongolian: The Mongolian name for petrels and shearwaters in general is Салхич шувуу salkhich shuvuu. The petrels are also known as Далайн хараацай dalaiŋ kharaatsai 'sea swallow'. To distinguish the Hydrobatidae from the Procellariidae, this site adopts the name Далайн хараацай dalaiŋ kharaatsai 'sea swallow' for the Hydrobatidae and Салхич шувуу salkhich shuvuu for the Procellariidae.
Species names
ABOUT THIS TABLE (Hover cursor to see) | HYDROBATINAE | ||||||||
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SCIENTIFIC & ENGLISH |
CHINESE |
EAST |
SOUTH | NORTH |
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| Oceanodroma | ||||||||
Latin |
English | Chinese |
Chinese (Taiwan) |
Other Ch |
Japanese |
Korean |
Vietnamese |
Mongolian |
Oceanodroma monorhis |
Swinhoe's storm petrel Swinhoe's storm-petrel Swinhoe's petrel |
黑叉尾海燕 (黑叉尾海燕) 'black fork-tailed sea-swallow' |
(黑叉尾海燕) 黑叉尾海燕 'black fork-tailed sea-swallow' |
宣厚的海燕 (宣厚的海燕) 'Swinhoe's sea-swallow' (Gee) (FS) |
ヒメクロウミツバメ (姫黒海燕) hime kuro umi-tsubame 'princess black sea-swallow' |
바다제비 bada-jebi 'sea swallow' |
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| Oceaonodroma leucorhoa |
Leach's storm petrel Leach's storm-petrel Fork-tailed storm petrel | 白腰叉尾海燕 (白腰叉尾海燕) 'white-rumped fork-tailed sea-swallow' |
白腰海燕 (白腰海燕) 'white-rumped sea-swallow' (Gee) (FS) |
コシジロウミツバメ (腰白海燕) koshi-jiro umi-tsubame 'white-rumped sea-swallow' |
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