My grandma has an uncommon surname: 尉 (Yu). I looked into it and found that it used to be the two-character surname 尉遲 (Yuchi), which was a Xianbei surname. When I tell my grandma about this, she thinks I'm insisting that she's not of Han ethnicity and gets just a little bit offended. But ofcourse that's not the case at all. Surnames indicate relationship to a distant paternal relative, but it does not mean you relate most to people of that family. Anyways, she tells me that her surname is commonly mispronounced as "Wei" and she has a relative with that surname who used to be a famous artist. Another interesting thing to note is that people of her side of the family all have a small "splinter" in the nails of both of their small toe. I have that trait too. Just a random fact.

Just a random thought: I hope the newer generations of Chinese will eventually lose this bias against non-Han ethnicities, even the ones that are no longer distinguishable today. Considering all the great things that the Xianbei had done, and if I know I have Xianbei ancestors, I'd be proud to acknowledge my Xianbei lineage. Not accusing your grandma for being biased; just making a general observation.

There was a sound shift happened in Middle Chinese [wy] <-> [y] though in Mandarin Yu and Wei sounds very different today. In my opinion, whether you pronounce 尉 yu or wye does not matter at all.

Yea. She was a little offended because she thought I was the one being bias I guess. She told me that "Han" was a very vague term and that everyone in the PRC are inter-related so we're all "Han". I actually think it's very cool that I may have Xianbei ancestors.



My grandma said that the surname is pronounced "yu1" but people pernounce the character "wei4" as in the more common dictionary definition of "a military officer".

I thought I had already made it clear. In Middle Chinese, or today's Cantonese and Hokkien, there is no "yu" but "wye". No matter what the character 尉 meant, when ancient Chinese used 尉 to transliterate the Sibe name, it was prounced as "wy".

Yes, it's very interesting. I've been very intrigued about MC and OC too.

What I meant was that today "yu" denotes the surname, and "wei" denotes the military rank; and that there must be a reason why the family insists being called "yu" while everyone else says "wei" even though they might have at one point been pronounced the same. Perhaps the hypothetical reconstruction "wye" used to sound more like "yu" and, as time went by, began sounding more like "wei".

The surname Yuchi 尉迟 was indeed a Xianbei surname. Yuchi tribes initially belonged to Tuyuhun, but later became part of the Xianbei.

There is some chinese info at
http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=356348335

Wow, nice stuff. Thanks. I'll have to show it to her some time. =)

Oh yeah, and the part about the toe nails, I recalled she told me it was a trait many northerners have, but its uncommon in people who live south of the Yangtze. Is anyone familiar with what I'm talking about?

Refer also to Wikipedia's article on change of Xianbei names to Han names at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_of_Xia...es_to_Han_names

Hi Foremost, on the toenail issue, you may want to consult this thread: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=9871

Thanks for the info. I have the "split-nails" on both sides of by feet. From what I can tell it's a dominant trait. It's really prevalent in my mother's side of the family. All cousins, as far as I know, has it even if one of their parents didn't. I have a relative in fact who is half white. Even he has this "split-nail".

Yes, I have to agree with you at this point. It was a shame that there was no sound recorder in ancient time. I speculate the original pronunciation is very like [ü] which can derive to [wy] or [y].

I'm a Southerner, and I have split nails on both small toes, too..

wow that means Yuchi Gong (尉遲恭) might have been one of your ancestors or at least be related to your family in some way.

Hi, foremost:

There is the surname "尉", other than "尉遲".

One famous person with 尉 surname is "尉缭", he is the author of 《尉缭子》.

尉缭 was a minister of Qinshihuang; who helped the first emperor in re-unifying China.

You may need to discuss more with your grandma before hurrying to the conclusion that you are Xianbei.