Editing Xianbei (section)

==Etymology==
Paul Pelliot tentatively reconstructs the [[Eastern Han Chinese]] pronunciation of 鮮卑 as */serbi/, from *'''Särpi''', after noting that Chinese scribes used 鮮 to transcribe [[Middle Persian]] '''sēr''' ([[Asiatic lion|lion]]) and 卑 to transcribe foreign syllable /pi/; for instance, [[Sanskrit]] गोपी ''gopī'' "milkmaid, cowherdess" became Middle Chinese 瞿卑 (''ɡɨo-piᴇ'') (> [[Standard Chinese|Mand.]] ''qúbēi'').<ref name="Toh">{{cite journal |last=Toh |first=Hoong Teik |title=The ''-yu'' Ending in Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Gaoju Onomastica. Appendix I: the ethnicon Xianbei |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |volume=146 |date=2005 |pages= 10–12|url=http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp146_xiongnu.pdf}}</ref>
[[File:CMOC Treasures of Ancient China exhibit - figure of a Xianbei warrior.jpg|thumb|Figure of a Xianbei warrior from the Northern dynasties (286–581) era. The figure wear a covered "wind hat", trousers, short upper tunic, and a cape tied around the neck, designed to protect against the wind and dust.]]

According to Schuessler, however, the Eastern Han Chinese pronunciation of 鮮卑 is /sian pie/, and he does not reconstruct syllables ending in ''-r'' for this stage. He reconstructed the Later Han pronunciation of 室韋 as /śit wui/.<ref name="Schuessler2007">{{cite book |last1=Schuessler |first1=Axel |title=ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese |date=2007 |publisher=University of Hawaiʻi Press |location=Honolulu, HI |isbn=978-0-8248-2975-9}}</ref>

On the one hand, '''*Särpi''' may be linked to the Mongolic root ''*ser'' ~''*sir'' which means "crest, bristle, sticking out, projecting, etc." (cf. [[Khalkha Mongolian|Khalkha]] сэрвэн ''serven''), possibly referring to the [[Mongolian horse|Xianbei's horses]] (semantically analogous with the Turkic ethnonym ''Yabaqu'' < ''Yapağu'' 'matted hair or wool', later 'a matted-haired animal, i.e. a colt')<ref>Golden, Peter B. [https://maiet.cfuv.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/014golden.pdf “The Stateless Nomads of Central Eurasia”] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215100255/https://maiet.cfuv.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/014golden.pdf |date=15 February 2022 }}, in ''Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity'' Edited by DiCosmo, Maas. p. 347-348. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316146040.024</ref> On the other hand, the ''[[Book of the Later Han]]'' and the ''[[Book of Wei]]'' stated that before becoming an ethnonym, Xianbei had been a toponym, referring to the Great Xianbei mountains (大鮮卑山), which is now identified as the [[Greater Khingan]] range ({{zh|s=大兴安岭|t=大興安嶺|p=Dà Xīng'ān Lǐng}}).<ref>''Hou Hanshu'' vol. 90 "鮮卑者，亦東胡之支也，別依鮮卑山，故因號焉" "the Xianbei people branched off from the so-called 'Eastern Hu' and came to settle around Mt. Xianbei after which name they were designated" translated by Toh (2005)</ref><ref>''Weishu'' vol. 1</ref><ref>{{cite thesis|type= PhD|last= Tseng|first= Chin Yin|title= The Making of the Tuoba Northern Wei: Constructing Material Cultural Expressions in the Northern Wei Pingcheng Period (398–494 CE)|date= 2012|publisher= University of Oxford|page= 1}}</ref>

Shimunek (2018) reconstructs *''serbi'' for Xiānbēi and *''širwi'' for 室韋 [[Shiwei people|Shìwéi]] < MC ''*ɕiɪt̚-ɦʉi''.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/37176756|title=Early Serbi-Mongolic-Tungusic lexical contact: Jurchen numerals from the 室韦 Shirwi (Shih-wei) in North China|first=Andrew|last=Shimunek|journal=Philology of the Grasslands: Essays in Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic Studies, Edited by Ákos Bertalan Apatóczky et al. (Leiden: Brill)|date=January 2018|page=331|doi=10.1163/9789004351981_019 |isbn=978-90-04-35195-0 |access-date=22 September 2019}}</ref>