u/fries-eggpanvol8647

Because, why not?

When Hsiu began his reconstruction of Pakanic, everyone was assuming that Austroasiatic began in MSEA and started migrating elsewhere like a radiating sun. So Bugan and Bolyu were thought to be northern most expansion of pAA, even though Hsiu and Li outrightly noted that Pakanic speakers historically had a more northern and wider distribution than being confined to endangered pockets nowadays. Today that hypothesis is completely ridicolous because it ignores the pre-Neolithic Eastern Eurasian hunter-gatherer population entirely, who didn't speak Austroasiatic, plus historical demographic movements, new genetic, botanical, climate, and archaeological evidence. This would explain why a *q proposal might be possible because it would likely to satisfy the messes in other branches.