Strange Southern Tigers

 STRANGE SOUTHERN TIGERS

Its the year of the Water Tiger so lets look at the character used to write the word and the word itself.

So why did I know this post strange southern tigers

Experts know or can made a reasonable hypothesis that while a tiger is called HU in Modern Chinese it probably had an older form of ho or hwo 

Tiger is Ho or Hwo in SinoKorean Ko in SinoJapanese and Vietnamese has SinoViet Ho but also Khai 

Cantonese and Hakka have fu 

Thai has khla Burmese kya but older inscriptions have the word as kla and Khmer has klaa 

WE know form changes in other languages an a becoming o is not unusual but while Burmese is a SinoTibetan language Thai has a much looser connection and Khmer and Vietnamese are AustroAsiatic.

So what do the similarities mean?

Let us guess that once upon a time some thousands of years ago there was a word perhaps #khaal or khlaa or kla used to name tigers. Some later languages dropped the L others changed kh to k and then h 

(Historical linguistics yes this is meant to be a very simple explanation for beginners hence the lack of special symbols - I'm trying to "sketch" a general outline) 

So this means three possibilities 

 there was a proto language proceeding SinoTibetan and AustroAsiatic spoken across China and SEasia 

or the speakers of ProtoAustrasiatic and ProtoSinoTibetan lived in communities close enough together to allow regular trading despite the mountainous terrain. 

or that southwards migration of certain groups begun earlier than currently thought and that Austroasiatic languages were spoken in Southern China until a much later date than currently thought

or all three possibilities are linked 

All that possibilities suggested by one word?

possibilities ...