Tibetan vwa ‘fox’ and the sound change Tibeto-Burman *wa -> Old Tibetan o By Nathan W. Hill

https://www.academia.edu/2528900/Tibetan_vwa_fox_and_the_sound_change_Tibeto_Burman_wa_Old_Tibetan_o?email_work_card=title&li=0 Paul Benedict (1972: 34) proposed that Tibeto-Burman medial *-wa regularly leads to -o- in Old Tibetan, but that initial *wa did not undergo this change. Because Old Tibetan has no initial w-, and several genuine words have the rhyme -wa, this proposal cannot be accepted. In particular, the intial of the Old Tibetan word vwa 'fox' is v- and not w-.