Commonality of Worldwide Myths

You haven't been around a Pekingnese, I take it? Their bark sounds like a harelipped sneeze. And if I remember it right, my dad told me that the sound a three-year-old in China uses for "what does a doggie say" is "gwow gwow!" and not our "woof woof!"As to other critters: the greenish warblers of Asia are a pretty well known "ring species" consisting of five subspecies living in a band around Tibet (but absent in Tibet/ the Himalayas). Neighboring subspecies intergrade in appearance and song, and interbreed pretty freely except for the two northernmost types. Those two look very much alike but have songs so different that they don't recognize each other as potential mates. The whole species appears to have arisin from a southern population, and they diversified in "language" and biology as they spread up either side of the mountains.