The two languages had similar inventories of initial consonants, distinguishing aspirated, unaspirated and implosive stops and having only voiced sonorants.
[4][5] Haudricourt's reconstruction was further supported by subsequent reporting that voiced stops and voiceless nasals are retained by other Karen languages, such as Geba.
[6] Manson gave a sample of diagnostic words for use during field elicitation to classify Karenic languages:[7] water [*tʰi] branch [*pʰaŋ] flower [*pʰɔ] chicken [*sʰan] sleep [*m̥i] die [*tʰi] star [*sʰa] leaf [*l̥a] fingernail [*m̥i] fire [*m̥e] give [*pʰe] bitter [*kʰa] bone [*kʰri] child [*pʰo] right [*tʰwe] spicy [*hɛ] take [*pʰi] pus [*pʰi/mi] sky [*m̥oʔ] iron [*tʰaʔ] pig [*tʰɔʔ] skin/bark [*pʰeʔ] shoot (v.) [*kʰaʔ] dark [*kʰeʔ/kʰuʔ] silver [*rɔn] ginger [*ʔeŋ] rabbit [*tɛ] navel [*te] spear [*pan] white [*pwa] egg [*ti] cheek [*pu] liver [*sɨn] eat [*ʔam] left [*se] be at, exist [*ʔɔ] paddy [*pɨ] blow/howl [*ʔu] head [*klo] hand [*su] breathe [*sa] many [*ʔa] alcohol [*siʔ] wing [*teʔ] heart [*saʔ] call/shout [*kaʔ] near [*pɔʔ] nest [*bwe] tongue [*ble] person [*bra] name [*min] drunk [*mun] red [*le] sun [*mɤ] stone [*loŋ] snake [*ru] arrow [*bla] old [humans] [*bra] hot [*go] monkey [*zoʔ] eye/face [*meʔ] brain [*nɔʔ] intestines [*breʔ] rib [*rɤʔ] deep [*jɔʔ] Haudricourt originally viewed the correspondence set V as irregular, and so reconstructed included only the three proto-tones *A, *B and *D. He added the proto-tone *B' in his 1975 revision.
[13] Luangthongkum has suggested that the words in class V might reflect an earlier final segment, a view that Haudricourt had also expressed.
[15][16] Only Pa'O has a full set of nasal and stop codas, though many occurrences of -p, -t or -k are found in loans from Shan or Pali.