què is the standard reading and powers nearly every compound: 麻雀 (sparrow), 孔雀 (peacock), 雀跃 (to jump for joy), 雀斑 (freckles). A separate colloquial reading qiǎo turns up in spoken words like 家雀儿.
culture
麻雀 (sparrow) is also the older name for mahjong 麻将, because the tiles clicking together sounds like sparrows chattering. The game's full early name was 麻雀牌.
隹 underneath is the indexing radical, a pictograph of a stubby-tailed bird with body and feet. It places 雀 in the short-tailed-bird family alongside 雁 wild goose, 雄 male bird, 集 flock gathering on a tree.
小 sits on top and supplies the diminutive sense: a 雀 is a small bird, a sparrow rather than a hawk. Small-on-top over bird-below reads cleanly as a meaning compound with no phonetic role.
