What is the relationship between 尉-shaped characters and the pronuncation yu? I'm curious about the relationship between 尉-shaped characters and the pronunciation yu. I'm not sure if this is just a Sichuanese thing or not, but here's what I know:


In some Sichuanese topolects 蔚蓝(色) is read yu lan.
It has been said that Deng Xiaoping often said: 芋问, which is really just: 慰问.
告慰 can also be read gao yu, in some Sichuanese topolects.
蔚 can also be a surname that is read: Yu.
尉迟 is also a double barreled surname.


The yu pronunciation seems like a bit of an anomaly and I'm not really sure how it fits in here. Perhaps it was that the surname was so strong in some areas that it affected the pronunciations of these other words.

Any ideas?
The two syllables are related.「尉」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*ʔut-s/) has two Mandarin descendants, which are approximately yu and wei.

Several OC syllables with initial /*ʔu-/ basically evolved into Mandarin w and Mandarin yu; you can see the same phenomenon with the phonetic component「」:


溫 wēn
慍 yùn